


The Garden of Earthly Delights

by akfedeau



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Discussions of Sexual/Reproductive Issues, F/M, Femdom, Gen, Illustrated, Implied Sexual Content, Love/Hate, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 13:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akfedeau/pseuds/akfedeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a chance visit to the Golden Cat bath house, the notorious assassin Daud meets its highest-paid courtesan: Cheeky, canny, and willing to become his informant - for a price. But when secrets threaten their alliance and Daud takes his last, fateful job, what began as “just business” changes forever. As Dishonored unfolds and the clock starts ticking toward Daud’s fate, the women of Dunwall’s famous brothel tell their side of the story - and Daud learns that regret can kill, but redemption is a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

So life was sweet beneath that golden dome

Of that cold brothel where we made our home.

 _\- The Threepenny Opera,_ "Tango Ballad"

 

* * *

 

In the thick, musky air of a late Dunwall afternoon, when the empress rested in her tower and the river swelled against the docks and the plague had begun to stir in the orphanage and the almshouse, a stillness like creeping death came over Clavering Boulevard.

It passed over the houses of the banker, the professor, the judge, the admiral. It passed over the art dealer and the doctor and the surgeon-general, over landed noble and newly rich and natural philosopher and royal friend.

And it curled up and settled in the townhouse at the end of the street, where the breeze rustled the drapes and the dog slept in the wainscoted hall and nothing - at least for now - seemed wrong.

In the kitchen the cook cut medallions of raw beef for dinner that night, and dark pinpricks of blood spattered on the wooden cutting board. The flowers lay limp under the living room window, their petals curling in on themselves. The barrister reclined on the sofa by a pair of empty snifters, and puffed impatient clouds of smoke as he sweltered in his clean white coat.

A coach clattered down the street outside. The barrister’s clerk fussed in his chair, and pulled out a handkerchief to dab at his forehead above his little round spectacles.

And they waited. And waited. And waited.

And still no sign of the man of the house.

The clerk stuffed the handkerchief back into his waistcoat and scratched behind his ear. The barrister’s eyebrows sank lower and lower until he looked like an angry, frilled bird, lining up the names he’d call his client when he finally came downstairs.

And out of nowhere a mysterious chill blew in through the baseboard, tingling up their spines and flickering in the oil lamp.

The clerk flinched. Ash dropped from the barrister’s cigar. The dog leaped up from its bed and barked, its ears pricked up and its hind legs straight, its fur as sharp as the hairs on the back of the barrister’s neck.

“Brutus!” A parlor maid rushed in from her post and fell down at the dog’s side. “Brutus, hush!”

The dog whined and lay back down…

“There, there.” She petted down its heaving side. “Hush, Brutus. There’s nothing wrong…”

“You!”

The maid jerked upright at the barrister’s harsh voice.

“What’s wrong with your master Forsyte? I’ve been waiting for an hour.”

“I’m sorry.” The maid shrank away from him. “Maybe he forgot his appointment was today.”

“Well, go and _remind_ him,” he ordered. “I’m getting uneasy in here.”

So she bowed and headed for the staircase with her tray under her arm.

“Mr. Forsyte?”

The floorboards creaked beneath her feet.

“Mr. Forsyte?” She repeated, and held onto the banister.

The chandelier tinkled above her. A flock of crows flapped off the roof.

“Mr. Forsyte…” she called one last time - “are you there?”

The grandfather clock ticked. The barrister stubbed his cigar out. The maid stepped on a brown-edged leaf that had fallen from the potted plant, and slunk up to his study at the end of the long, sunlit hall…

“Mr. Forsyte?” She knocked. “The barrister is still downstairs.” Her words echoed off the varnished wood. “I’m sure he could reschedule, but there might be an extra charge…”

No response.

The maid summoned her courage… and twisted the brass knobs. The great, weighty doors opened with a great, weighty groan…

Something smelled. Someone had drawn the curtains, and left the room in complete dark. Her mind raced and her chest grew tight, but she stuck one black shoe in front of her - then the other - and, despite herself, ventured inside…

And when she saw Mr. Forsyte, her tray clanged on the floor.

And she screamed.


	2. Chapter 1

 

 

* * *

 

As the sun set and a black cloud darkened the waterfront and Phineas Francis Forsyte had only lain dead half an hour, the City Watch descended on the quiet street like a pack of snarling hounds.

Their heavy hobnailed soles thundered and steel scraped as they unsheathed their swords, sending the rats into the gutters and the neighbors out to their balconies and window sills. A transport car squealed to a halt and sparks showered from the rails beneath, and more men poured out in their iron helmets and blue jackets and button-up boots.

“Ma’am…” two vied for the maid’s attention as she whimpered on the front steps - “ma’am, you have to tell us _everything_ …”

“I don’t know!” The lower guards fretted amongst each other. “It looks just like a suicide!”

“But why would he do it like that?”

“Can _you_ think of anything else?!”

A squad rushed to set up an alarm in front of the senior officer, pallid, fighting the urge to pace, sweating in his helmet. He wiped his brow under the brim and adjusted his chin strap, and someone blew a shrill whistle behind him that left a ringing in his ears.

“Sir!” Two recruits stumbled over themselves in their haste to reach him. “Sir, we’re finished blocking off the crime scene!”

“Well? What did you find?”

“I…” they stammered over each other - “we, uh…”

“Spit it _out!”_

“We can’t find anything up there! He’s just been stabbed through the chest!” One piped up. “No footprints…”

“No struggle…”

“Oh, oh, and - an open window!”

The senior officer went whale-belly white.

The recruits shivered. “What?”

“I want this area locked down! Nobody in, nobody out!” The officer took off down the cobblestones, his voice shaking the birds out of the trees. “Two squads to the waterfront! Another up to Holger Square! Sweep down to the Distillery! Endoria! Bloodox! Bottle Street!”

The guards splashed through puddles, and seized pistols and bullets and oil tanks.

“Sergeant, call the Overseers! Arms at the ready and watch your backs!” The officer marched under the streetlamp… and fell to a frightened murmur. “It’s _him.”_

 

* * *

 

But far away from the City Watch on rooftops and storm drains, over broken shingles and crumbling masonry and crooked chimney pots, dark figures ran through the Rudshore District like gazelles against the sun.

They vaulted over lampposts and under arches, through alleys and causeways and empty streets, and signaled and shepherded each other through the central rail station door. Their boots landed soft and their gas masks hissed. They stirred the kingsparrows out of their nests. They swung down onto columns and balconies and boards that heaved under their weight, and leaped and tumbled toward the stern supports of the Chamber of Commerce, tall and flanking the statue of the empress that jutted up to the clouds.

They ducked past breaks in the metal bars and climbed through the open windows. They scurried by leaded panes in dark hallways and joined their brothers at maps and pinboards. And in a whip of wind and a puff of ash a man in red appeared in their midst, some six feet, strong-jawed and his black gloves dull with dried blood, and lazy confidence shone in his gray eyes as he swaggered through the bustling hall.

“Daud?” Someone called to him.

Papers rustled. Pens scribbled.

 _“Daud_.” A shorter figure elbowed its way through the morass of men up to his side. “I’ve got a report for you.”

“Billie Lurk.” Daud kept walking. “You’re a sound for sore ears.”

“Phineas Francis Forsyte, fifty-seven years old.” Billie recited it from memory without asking to go on. “Dead an hour. No prints. No struggle. Single stab wound to the chest.”

Daud listened…

“That’s all they can find right now. They’ll have Clavering locked down all night.” Billie edged around the crooked bookcase. “Past the Captain’s Chair should be safe, but I wouldn’t test it on Bottle Street. Or the river. They may turn on the searchlights. They’re pretty scared of you.”

Daud pushed a drape aside, unperturbed. “What about Pratchett?”

“Pratchett was in talks to buy Forsyte’s factory, so they’ll know it’s political. And with the wound type and the lack of prints, they already know you made the kill.” Billie matched Daud’s long strides through the hall. “But we planted letters that point to three different nobles hiring you, with equal motive against Forsyte but no underworld contacts, and after a week of investigation they’ll start to contradict themselves. The trails will end. The leads will dry up. The Overseers will get bored. The Watch will be distracted with the Hatters and the Dead Eels, and we can start scouting for our next job in…” she passed him a blue folder - “about ten days.”

Daud stopped in front of his glass double doors… and marveled.

“That’s good.”

“You’re welcome.”

And he stepped inside and covered his mouth, and yawned a wide-mouthed yawn.

Billie followed him in and swiped off her mask, and she glanced to and fro at the familiar chaos in his room. The dingy lamp. The metal shipping crates that had become tables and shelves. The painting of the Royal Spymaster, client of the week-month-year, with his baby-bald head and his long, sniveling nose. Daud shrugged out of his coat and flung it with the folder across his stained stone desk, and stretched his arms and back out as he climbed his long staircase…

“Was it the window?”

Daud paused halfway up. “What?”

“Did he leave his second-floor window unlocked?”

Daud let out a one-note laugh and kept walking. “That’s right.”

Billie lingered at the foot of the stairs. “Isn’t that the third in two months?”

“Yes, Billie.” Daud approached the washbowl beside his bed. “Yes, it is.” He filled it with the nearby pitcher and snapped his gloves off like a proud surgeon, and dunked his cleaning cloth in the water and wrung it out. “Seems like I go there every other week to take some noble out, and they still don’t shutter their windows.”

“The High Overseer’s office does.”

“You know…” Daud dabbed at the last of the blood on each glove and set them down to dry - “I’m not fond of the High Overseer.”

Billie finger-combed some life into her short black bob. “I’m sure he speaks highly of you.”

Daud grabbed a fresh pair out of his trunk on his way down the stairs. “I’m sure he does.”

Billie fiddled with the sharp metal edge at the end of the banister, then shifted her weight back and forth on her heels…

“Are you in for the night?”

“No.” Daud pulled the new gloves on. “No, I… I think not. Maybe I’ll take the evening to myself.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Daud swept his coat into the crook of his elbow and examined the mess on his desk. “Don’t bother to follow me. I can take care of myself.”

“All right.” Billie admired the wall of targets with her hands behind her back. “Just stay away from the streets I told you about. I can hold things down here.”

Daud shoved his coin purse into his pocket. “I know you can. It’s why I let you.”

“Oh, Daud?”

He tilted his ear toward her.

“What about Pratchett’s payment?”

“Tell him I want it tomorrow night.” Daud threw on the rest of his gear on his way out. “If I don’t have it by Saturday, I’m going after him.”

 

* * *

 

“Here because you’re bored again?”

“I thought money was money to you.”

The dome of the Golden Cat glowed orange against the blue night sky. The whale-oil lamps flickered against the red damask wallpaper in the entrance hall, and men crowded the chairs and banquette couches in a haze of noise and sweat. Minor nobles in their satin breeches. Working men with stubble on their chins. Bottle Street men with their loud waistcoats and stub cigars and Hatter Gang men with their stovepipes in their laps, sneering at each other from across the checkerboard tiled floor.

Some talked. Friends, maybe, or just partners in crime. But the rest kept their heads down like making eye contact would give them the plague, or fiddled with their cuffs and collars as they waited to go upstairs.

And blue smoke threaded over Madame Prudence’s hair as she thumbed through her wide guestbook.

“It’s not when it goes around killing my clients.”

“It’s not my fault someone wants them dead.” Daud glanced around for eavesdroppers. No one. “Maybe if they were nicer people, they wouldn’t have to pay for these women’s time.”

“Well, I could say something about that, but I won’t.” Prudence unscrewed her fountain pen. “Now. I’ll take my hundred, for silence.”

Daud fished for his coin purse. “You raised your rate.”

“And you raised your bounty.” Prudence jabbed her pruney finger into the wood in front of him. “ _One hundred._ ”

Daud glowered at her over the chatter and the lurid sounds from the other rooms.

“Don’t give me that look. I charge the High Overseer three.”

“The Abbey must have awfully deep pockets.”

“Yes they do.”

Daud popped his purse open with a defiant thumb and slid the coins across the tabletop - and Prudence brightened like she’d had her oil tank replaced.

“Good boy. What can I do for you?”

Daud dropped his voice. “Show me something interesting.”

Prudence rolled her eyes. “Something I can put a _price_ on.”

“You’re a professional. Use your judgment.”

Prudence took a long drag on her cigarette holder, and deliberated over the empty spaces on the guestbook page…

“I think I have a girl for you.”

“All right.”

“You’ve never visited this one before.” Prudence tapped the blunt end of the pen on the paper. “She’s the most expensive one here and she's not to everyone's taste, but I think you’ll get what you want.”

“I can pay.”

“So you’ll take her, then?”

“All right.”

“Oh, good. I’m so glad we could find something.” Prudence’s rings jangled with greed and she flashed him an insincere smile, and she scribbled something - not his name - into the first blank space. “Go up to the Smoking Room floor and take a left for the Scarlet Room…” she waved him toward the stairs - “Joanna should be almost ready for you.”

 

* * *

 

The Scarlet Room door clicked closed as Daud let himself in.

He took in the warm overmuch-ness of the place one artifact at a time. A bed. Round. Too many pillows. A coat rack with a long silk robe. A long fainting couch and a huge white clawfoot tub, and a vase of red silk peonies on the cabinet at his side.

He paced across the carpet. Extravagant. Even for the Golden Cat. Something tickled in his nose like… jasmine?

And a velvet voice called to him.

“Are you lost, sweetheart?”

Daud jumped and turned on his heel toward the sound.

“I’m the woman shape over here.”

A willowy silhouette bent down behind the painted screen, and fastened its shoe before it stood and hiked up its shoulder straps. Daud crept over to the tall panels and slid the end aside - and found a woman in a black silk bustle and drawers that matched the flowers and walls, all limbs and dark brown hair piled into a twist behind her head.

“There you are.” Joanna wiggled her garter up her thigh. “I was starting to worry you didn’t know what one looked like.”

“I… um.” Daud cleared his throat. A small chest. Slim ankles in button-up boots. “Hmmh.”

Joanna shushed him with a finger on his mouth. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

She swayed out from behind the screen, and Daud felt her size up the seat of his pants.

“You’re a tall drink of water, aren’t you? Did anybody give you a name?”

“They told me yours was Joanna.”

“You mean Prudence did. And I asked you first.”

Daud frowned. “What’s a name to you, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s nothing to me, but it’s a lot to you, apparently.” Joanna caught her camisole strap before it could fall back down. “Now, come on. I’m not going to ask twice.”

So he wavered over it, before…

“Daud.”

Joanna took a seat on her fainting couch and grinned. “Is that so.”

“Is what?”

“I was just wondering whether you’d lie.”

Daud tensed.

“All right, Daud.” Joanna beckoned him over. “Come here.”

He stood rooted to the spot.

Her hand floated away. “Fine. At least take off your shoes.”

Daud hesitated again. The same thin hand drifted down - and patted the cushion beside her.

So he lifted his feet up and out, one heel-toe at a time.

“How do you know my name?”

“I’d never forget a face like that. Especially not on a wanted poster.” Joanna slid to the side to give him room. “It’s that scar, you know. Really sets you apart.”

Daud left his gloves beside his boots.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” Joanna fluffed the back of her hair. “I’ve seen faces in these halls that would get in a lot more trouble than you.”

Daud sank onto the cushion, as far toward the end as he could.

“A lot of faces, actually.” Joanna unbuckled the belt across Daud’s lapels. “Even Overseers. That sixth Stricture, you know, I guess it’s only for lay people like us.” She let it fall on the carpet and dragged off his overcoat. “The point is you can learn a lot here if you keep your eyes open. People can be so honest when you make them comfortable.”

Daud tipped his eyebrow.

“How honest?”

“Well… at ten every Friday morning, Lord Dawson’s wife has her sewing circle.” Joanna pulled away. “So every Friday at 10:20, Dawson shows up at our door.” She stood up from the couch and sashayed around him to advertise. “He’s a creature of habit, so he asks for Portia every time. She’s young. Inexperienced.” A disgusted expression. “He likes her that way.”

Daud stretched his neck to follow her.

“Then at 10:30 she gives him a hand massage, and after that, well, you’re a big boy, you can take it from there.” Joanna whisked down and popped his collar as she passed him by. “But by eleven Portia’s tired, and at 11:05 he’s done…” she took her seat back at his side - “and he goes out on the Gold Room balcony for a ten-minute smoke.”

Daud blinked.

And Joanna added, _“alone.”_

Daud peered at her with suspicion.

“Why’d you tell me all this?”

Joanna smoothed a wrinkle out of her bustle. “You asked.”

Daud crossed his legs away from her. “You’re after something.”

 _“You’re_ after something. You’re the one who came upstairs.” Joanna leaned in closer. “What’d you tell Prudence you were here for, anyway?”

“I…” Daud caught the jasmine smell again - “‘something interesting.’”

Joanna spent a long time staring a hole in him through heavy eyes.

“Tell you what.” She stroked the nape of Daud's neck. “I don’t suck you off, submit to you, or do anything with my back door. Anything else… we’ll talk.” She reached around to play with his open collar. “Do you understand?”

“Only if you tell me what you want.”

And Joanna smirked.

“You could start by helping me out of these clothes.”


	3. Chapter 2

 

 

* * *

 

The next week the Cat’s downstairs washroom bustled with footsteps and faces and powder and tulle, and a heartbeat of colors and chaos echoed off the cold, gray walls.

The courtesans squeezed past each other in the crowded aisles, where lilac perfume mixed with amber and patchouli and vetiver, and grabbed chairs in front of sinks and mirrors with their silver wearing off at the ends. They snapped open their compacts. They blended their eyeshadow. They pinched their cheeks. They took deep breaths and sucked in their guts as they fastened their cinchers and bustiers, and between swipes of their lip brushes they chattered amongst themselves.

“Who’s coming tonight?”

“I dunno!”

“Do you think Lord Shaw will?”

“I hope not…”

Someone knelt down to retrieve her bracelet. Another bent over and shook out her hair. They filled in their eyebrows and finger-blotted their vanishing cream, harried and breathless, searching for combs and brushes and garters and slipper-shoes. And in between them strode Joanna, all queenly carriage and red silk, the wide train of her robe clearing a path behind her on the concrete floor.

“Good afternoon, darlings!” She called to them.

And in a chorus back - “Good afternoon, Jo!”

“Any plague?”

“Not today, Jo!”

“That’s what I like to hear!”

Joanna hung a right around the tile ledge, where a girl with a heap of red curls rifled through a wooden trinket box.

“What’s the matter?”

The girl started digging faster. “I can’t find my rouge!”

“What color are you?”

“Morley Rose…”

“All right. Give me a minute.” Joanna picked up the hem of her robe and swept it away from the wet floor drain. “I checked the guestbook. Violetta and Beatrice, you’re with Lord Shaw in the Ivory Room…”

A loud, sustained _u-u-ugh_ from the farthest sink -

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Try not to think about it.” Joanna peered onto the counter and over shoulders, one by one. “Portia, you stay in the parlor. There’ll be a bunch of Watch boys tonight. One just got his own squad, they’ll be rowdy. Don’t be afraid to throw them out…” and when she spied something in Genevieve’s mirror, she reached in and snatched the jar of Morley Rose. “Restless hands, Genevieve! You take from your sister, you hurt yourself!”

“I thought you didn’t like the Strictures!”

“And I don’t like stealing, either!” Joanna took another lap around the sinks and set the jar down at the right station. “Here you go.”

“Thank you…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Joanna swung around the center table to the water tank, where a girl in a lavender skirt bent double in her chair. “Beatrice? How are we feeling?”

Beatrice made a nauseous noise.

“That time again?”

“Tomorrow…”

Joanna patted Beatrice’s cheek, then her forehead, and spotted something under her hair - and whipped a notched whalebone on a hairpin from behind her ear.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Bottle Street.” Beatrice hushed. “The woman said it’d make them stop…”

“Why didn’t you ask me for one?”

“I was embarrassed…”

“I would’ve gotten it for you…”

Beatrice opened her mouth to say something, but heaved, and promptly shut up. Joanna inspected the carvings, then flipped it over and wiggled the wire bindings back and forth…

“All right, fine.” Joanna dropped the charm back into Beatrice’s lap. “This one looks like it was made well, but don’t go buying up things like this. Come to me next time. I know a good smuggler.” She stood up. “And don’t get caught.”

Beatrice bit her lip, but nodded, and stuffed it back into the depths of her hair.

“Betty, Bunting’ll be here in an hour. The rest of you, take what you can get!” Joanna spread her arms and hung onto the door frame and gave them all a last look back. “You know where to find me if you need me. Now are you gonna knock ‘em dead?!”

And they all answered, _“Yes, Jo!”_

 

* * *

 

When Joanna made it back to the Scarlet Room she twisted her key in the lock, and switched on the red “occupied” lamps in the hall as one last hint to leave her alone.

She leaned against the door frame and went over the room one more time. The bed… made. The screen… folded. The rug… yes, the rug swept. The bathtub - _ugh_. She shuddered. After that last one, definitely clean. With nothing left to do she unfastened her crescent hairpin, and collapsed into her vanity chair with a limp spine and splayed feet.

A trawler passed by on the river and blew its horn. The sun inched toward the rooftops and bathed the room in orange - broad, lazy stripes falling through the open balcony doors.

And she sighed… a long… tired… sigh.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

She gasped. Daud stood outside on her balcony with his arms on the balustrade, watching the trawler and a flock of white river birds as they went by.

As soon as the surprise wore off Joanna sat up straight, and put her courtesan voice right back on.

“I do _live_ here, you know.”

“And work.” Daud meandered inside, his hands behind his back. “You’re a busy woman. I had to steal the guestbook to find when you’d be free again.”

Joanna snapped her hairpin back into place. “How do you steal from _Prudence?!”_

Daud propped himself against her mirror. “Same way you steal anything. I waited until she turned around.”

Joanna unscrewed the filigree jar on her vanity and took out her powder puff. “All right, very funny. But it’s not that easy.”

“Yes it is.”

“Well.” Joanna puffed at her décolletage. “I’m not used to being hunted down. This should be interesting.” She recapped the jar. “My last one likes to schedule almost three weeks in advance, but…” she slunk over to his side of the mirror - “here you are, I guess, come to _spice_ up my life- _eugh!”_

She recoiled.

Daud recoiled too. “What?”

Joanna wrinkled her nose. “You’re like a _hagfish._ ”

“I…”

“Where have you _been?”_

Daud fumbled up and down his ribs. “It’s not that bad…”

Joanna sniffed his neck, then his leather sleeve. “Huh. Maybe it’s just your coat. But Outsider’s _blood.”_ She untied her bathrobe and threw it over her chair. “The Golden Cat is a bath house. We’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

“Do you tell all your clients they stink?”

“No - just the ones that do!”

 

* * *

 

“So.”

Daud turned the tap on Joanna’s bathtub and let his plain white shorts fall to the floor, and climbed into the steaming water as Joanna got undressed.

“Humor me one question.”

“What?”

“Have you ever had a client who was clean?”

Joanna stopped dead halfway through opening her cincher clasps. _“Daud!”_

“You know what I mean. Someone you couldn’t blackmail.”

“That’s still an impertinent question.”

“I took you for the kind of woman who didn’t mind talking business.”

“I don’t.” Joanna undid the rest of her cincher and left it on top of her robe, then planted her pointed foot on the chair cushion and unbuckled her garter. “With the right people.”

“I guess I’m supposed to ask you now whether I’m ‘the right people.’”

“I haven’t decided. You didn’t do yourself any favors sneaking up on me like that.” Joanna dragged off her stocking and put up the other leg. “But… since you asked nicely…”

Daud watched her in suspense…

And she bundled up both of her stockings. “Maybe I know one.”

“How flattering.”

“I’m not leading you on, either. I can only think of one.” Joanna gave herself a quick glance-over. “What must that say about me?”

“More about Dunwall than it does about you.”

Joanna set the stockings on the growing pile. “Oh, that was good.”

“What?”

“You _can_ be charming.”

Daud perched his elbow on the side of the tub. “Maybe next time I’ll aim for it.”

“Anyway.” Joanna took hold of her red camisole straps. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone here I couldn’t blackmail. Everyone’s got a reputation somewhere.” She slipped the camisole off and bared her chest. “But I _can_ tell you about someone who wasn’t as clean as he looked, which might be a more interesting story.”

Daud reached across the other side to Joanna’s brass drink cart, and picked up the glass she’d poured for him.

“So.” Joanna stuck her thumbs in the waist of her drawers. “Late one night, I’m winding down, and Prudence barges into my room. Says it’s someone important. Very short notice.” She sidled up to the tub without taking them off. “So I’m trying to throw myself together as fast as I can, and in comes Minister Wormwood’s nephew… who just lost his vote in Parliament.”

“I knew politics didn’t run in that family.”

“So there he stands on my carpet, looking scared to death of me…” Joanna gestured to the empty space in the room beside her fainting couch - “and he practically loses his dinner when I ask him what he wants.” She bent over and pushed her drawers down onto the white bathmat. “‘Oh, Woody, honey, you’re new here, aren’t you?’” Her eyes rolled. “Of course he is.”

Daud tilted the glass back and forth before he raised it to his mouth.

“So then it takes me the better part of an hour to loosen him up enough.” The water sloshed as Joanna climbed into the tub across from him. “By which point he’s confessed that he’s never _actually_ been with a woman, he just sneaks out to Bottle Street to buy these ‘specialty magazines…’”

“And what’d he finally tell you?”

“He wanted me to step on his jewels.”

Daud choked on his drink.

Joanna laughed out loud. “What?!”

Daud sputtered and beat his breastbone. “N-nothing.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t step on yours.” Joanna nudged his leg with her knee. “Unless you ask.”

Daud set his half-empty glass down, and Joanna scooped water over herself.

“What about you?”

“What?”

“Well.” Joanna rubbed down her forearm. “You think _I’m_ in a storied profession. Look at you.”

Daud kept his hand on the rim of the cart, and the bemusement drained from his face.

“I mean, I’d think you really get to know someone when they’re about to die.” Joanna lifted herself halfway up to grab the soap from the tray on the floor. “Is it true? Do they see the Outsider?”

Daud bristled. “I wouldn’t tell you if I knew.”

“Oh. I see how it is.” Joanna hardened. “I show you mine, but you don’t show me yours.”

Daud bared his teeth. “I’m not paying for you to take shots at me.”

“Yes you are.”

Daud’s shoulders tensed.

“There aren’t many men in Dunwall who can afford me twice.” Joanna popped the top off of the glass decanter of soap, and looked him down and dead in the eye from her perch atop her knees. “The ones who can don’t come back unless I’m _exactly_ what they want.”

“What’s your point?” Daud snipped.

“The point is, dear, that you came back.”

Daud didn’t respond. Perhaps he didn’t want to. Perhaps he didn’t know how.

“Now.” Joanna poured the soap over the washcloth. “About that smell.”

Daud studied her for a minute, before…

“You didn’t tell me what you wanted last time.”

“You’re right. I didn’t. How foolish of me.” Joanna frothed the washcloth. “All right, Daud, I’ll be level with you. I want to make you a deal.”

“We already have one. Money for comfort.”

“And that’s all right.” Joanna lowered herself onto her haunches. “But I think I can do you one better.”

“‘Do me one better’ how?”

“I told you what I see in this place. The secrets I pick up.” Joanna wrung the cloth out over him and drew a trail of soap up from his navel. “Sooner or later, you know I’m going to see someone whose head you want.”

Daud cocked his head to see her better. “There’s still something in this for you.”

“Your protection.” Joanna swirled the suds over his neck and collarbone. “I want a detail of your Whalers watching this place, day and night. If I’m going to inform for you, I’m putting myself on the line…” she drew her fingers away - “and if you start making enemies, I’ll be the first to go.”

Daud gave her a skeptical squint. “You’re a courtesan.”

“And you’re the Knife of Dunwall.” Joanna bent in so close that her breath brushed his cheek. “And I never doubt the wicked to step on a woman to reach a man.”

Joanna breathed in. Daud breathed out. The steam clung to their damp arms and necks. Joanna squeezed the washcloth over him one more time, and Daud followed the soap as it ran down his stomach, into the pearly water below…

“Well?”

Daud swallowed the lump in his throat.

“You could tell me about a Marcus Boothe.”


	4. Chapter 3

 

 

* * *

 

Early in the morning Daud rose with the kingsparrows and the riverboats, and splashed himself clean in the bedside basin and rearranged his hair.

He rolled his neck until it cracked and felt around his sinewy side. An old pistol shot under his ribs. An old stab on his waist. A fading bruise on the crest of bone where his narrow hip began - he rubbed it once, then let the yellowish-green spot alone - and whipped his shirt off his metal headboard and stuck his broad arms through the sleeves.

His shoulders popped. He buttoned the shirt up - one, two, three - over his navel and his chest and all the way up his throat. A pair of faded socks and dark breeches lay just-dried over the rail, and he stretched them over his legs and stuffed them down into his boots.

He left his bed unmade and gathered the rest of his clothes on the way out. His gloves. His heavy-buckled belts. His fresh-spilled-blood-red coat. A gentle haze stirred in the sky and the river lapped at the streets outside, and he set off for the practice room with an untroubled mind.

When Daud made it downstairs he let the torn doorway drape fall behind himself, and crept into the dust-smudged space and gave it a quick look-around. Bookcases. Training dummies. A couple of rugs that the bankers had left. Thomas? Rulfio? Billie, maybe? No one around.

So he pushed the spotlight aside with his toes, and it grated across the water-stained wood. When he’d cleared the space he picked his sword up off the overturned shelf, and balanced it - felt the knurling, the notch at the hilt, the light, tempered weight… and ran his fingers along the dull edge and let the hiss fill his ears.

A hundred nobles, Daud reminisced. A hundred husbands. A hundred criminals. And hundreds upon hundreds of the inconvenient heads of alerted Watch officers, and butlers, maids, and mistresses, and bodyguards, and thugs, and sailors - and clients who didn’t pay.

So he slid into his old, practiced footwork. One foot at the ready. One foot to bear weight. He tossed the sword just high enough to catch it on his dominant side…

And he swung it down into a savage chop, right into the heart of the burlap sack.

He drew back fast. _No. Bad footing._ He rearranged himself and tried again. One slash - then two - then three! Right! He dove in and smacked with the butt of his hilt. His boot squeaked as he turned - step, _slash!_ \- and chunks of hay flew in his face, as he whisked away on the pads of his feet, with a swish of his coat.

Next he slowed to a stop - and took a breath - and pictured an enemy in the lifeless folds. City Watch? An Overseer? A noble’s bodyguard? _Now, he’s going to move in first -_ Daud swept his back foot across - _and then he’s going to lean forward -_ _Step - parry!_ _Parry - slash - and blade lock!_ The sack resisted and he bore down harder, _harder -_ his sword grated - his shoulders strained - until he swiped through and leaped back. _Parry! Slash!_ His arm tingled with the aftershock.

And he twirled his sword, drew his heels together… and balled up his left fist - and an arcane mark glowed through the back of his glove before he vanished into thin air.

He reappeared behind the farthest dummy, and - _slash!_ He vanished again. _Transverse - slash!_ He sent one of the sackcloth heads rolling and his heart leaped into his throat, _yes, good, still got it_ \- _transverse, slash! Transverse, slash!_ His blood pounded as he found his rhythm, step - _slash!_ And _transverse_ again…

And without thinking Daud landed on the last jump with his ankles crossed.

He gasped. He kicked. He fought to untangle himself. But before he could get his balance back he came crashing down by the far bookshelf, the floor rising up to meet him and his sword clattering out of reach.

He groaned. His elbow throbbed. Dust gathered on the fabric on his searing knees. The room slowly… gently… stopped rocking back and forth… so Daud lifted his head - his neck - and his shoulders - before he sat all the way up.

And a sinking sickness settled in the pit of his gut, as he stared into his marked hand and for the first time - in a long time - felt dread.

 

* * *

 

“Are you kidding? Look at it! It’s beautiful on you.”

Joanna sat on the rusty dormitory bed with her elbows on her knees, in the pale glow of the morning light through the dirty window. Betty sidestepped the mattresses on the floor as she twirled in Joanna’s cincher and bustle, and stretched over her shoulder to try to get a glimpse at the back.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Of course I am.” Joanna pushed the heap of laundered clothes aside. “We’re the same size. Might as well make the most of it.”

Betty patted her stomach. “I feel like I’m stepping on your toes.”

“Well, you’re not. I said so myself.” Joanna noticed a bright white pair of lacy drawers in the middle of the pile, and untangled and folded it for lack of anything better to do. “If you ever want to borrow it, it’s yours. Give Bunting something _else_ to talk about.”

Betty giggled. “That’s cruel.”

“But you’re laughing, though. You know I’m right.”

Betty went to work on the first row of cincher clasps. The chatter of a couple girls on break echoed in the back stairwell, and Joanna set the folded pair of drawers aside.

“Do you think they ever get tired of us the way we get tired of them?”

Betty unhooked one, then another. “You think Bunting’ll ever get sick of that chair?”

Joanna snorted. “No. No, I guess not.”

A telltale clack of old heels started up the stairs…

“We’re accessible, we’re reliable, and we keep secrets for them.” Betty took the bustle off. “Men in Dunwall would be lost without us.”

Joanna flung a camisole over her hair like a veil. “They might have to marry for _love_ …”

But before she could finish the heel-clacks stopped in front of the open door, with a hollow, authoritative stomp against the aging wood.

Betty froze. Joanna let the camisole drop. Prudence loomed in the doorway and cast a shadow halfway across the room, a sour smudge of silk and fur against the peeling wallpaper.

“Joanna?”

 

* * *

 

“Prudence, is this urgent?”

“It doesn’t matter. I asked you.” Prudence led Joanna down the splintery service stairs. “You come when you’re called.”

Joanna edged around a nail sticking out of a board on the landing. “You don’t need to throw your weight around.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

Joanna steamed under her robe.

“Does Betty intend to work today?” Prudence asked. “Or is she just going to fool around?”

“Bunting will be here after seven. Apart from that, she’s free.” Joanna rounded another landing, this time with a battered end table and a shipping crate, and a hideous abstract Sokolov sculpture of a nude woman with no head. “She’s a grown woman, you know. She can keep track of her own schedule.”

“Well, I don’t know these things.” Prudence jiggled the key in her office door. “I see girls working, I see girls sitting around. What are they doing? Waiting for their courses to match up?”

Joanna bit her tongue.

“Now.” Prudence ushered Joanna in without welcoming her and left her fur shrug on the locker shelf. “Late last week you took a client without scheduling him first. Your records show he ordered three services at your regular rate…” she took her seat back at her desk, strewn with unfinished letters - “and that this was the second time he’d come to visit you. Close the door.”

Joanna complied and stole a look at the shrug. Some poor Pandyssian creature with moth bites on the underside, striped gaudy black-and-ivory and its feet and tail still attached.

“Well?” Prudence asked again.

“That’s right.”

Prudence spread the letters and envelopes onto separate sides of her blotter pad. “It was Daud, wasn’t it?”

Joanna hesitated.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes, Prudence, it was.”

“And he paid you?”

“And left a tip.”

Prudence sucked her teeth… and set to finishing the letter on top of the pile.

“What did you talk to him about?”

“Just… told him the story of Wormwood’s nephew,” Joanna dodged. “Same thing I tell everyone.”

“And?”

Joanna shrugged. “And… that’s it.”

Matter-of-fact again. “You’re lying.”

“All right.” Joanna crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “I told him if he had a hit who was a regular at the Cat, I could pass along gossip about him.” She wished Prudence would stop scrawling and pay attention to her. “In exchange for some guards to protect myself. That’s all there is. Nothing more.”

Prudence signed her name and set the letter aside, and picked up a second one to finish. “So you’re helping him hurt our clientele.”

“He was _going_ to kill them anyway,” Joanna argued, “and now we have his protection. You want to know what’s good for business, is being on the good side of dangerous men.” She whirled around toward the door. “Now. If you don’t mind.”

“I didn’t say you could go.”

Joanna’s nails curled into the cold doorknob.

“I know this isn’t the first thing you’ve done behind my back.” Prudence signed the second letter with an even more extravagant flourish. “You’ve been here twelve years. I understand. You feel important.”

All the niceness fell off of Joanna’s face.

“I am important.”

Prudence folded the paper in thirds. “Really? Why?”

“You know why.” Joanna stalked toward Prudence’s desk. “Admit it. You need me.”

“I admit nothing.” Prudence creased the folds with her too-long thumbnail. “I don’t get anything from you that I can’t get anywhere else. And now that you’re almost thirty, I could get it younger and fresher, too.”

“You know Beatrice’s cramps make her throw up the first two days?”

Prudence opened the next envelope and didn't respond.

“She doesn’t have a good diet to begin with,” Joanna pressured her.

“If she earned more she could feed herself.”

“You know there’s a captain with syphilis that comes here every few months?” Joanna didn’t let up. “Do you know what I had to make Loulia wear? Do you know how much they _cost?”_

“He walked out on that…”

“And guess what? Loulia didn’t catch it from him!” Joanna gulped down the contemptuous spit gathering in her mouth. “You don’t care, do you? You really just don’t care. You’d let the rats eat her alive if you thought some noble would pay to watch!”

Prudence threw the envelope down, and got up and slammed in her chair.

“Someone has to take care of those women!” Joanna tightened her lip. “Because I know damn well you won’t.”

And in a flash Prudence pinned Joanna to the door, with a scuffle of her brittle shoe heels and a _thump_ of wood - and she snaked her fist up and closed it around Joanna’s throat.

“You think you’ve got a smart head on a pretty little neck…” Prudence squeezed just hard enough to hurt - “but remember who owns that neck.”

The veins throbbed under Joanna’s chin, and she gave Prudence a venomous glare. A lock of hair fell out of Prudence’s updo on the side of her brow - and when her knuckles turned white, she let go - and backed away.

“Think about that.”


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for graphic violence and blood-related kink.

 

 

* * *

 

_Blood in the Halls of the Academy! Murder Rocks the City Watch!_

The plague moved into the townhouses and crossed the river to Drapers Ward, and bulletins surfaced on buildings from North End to Smoke Street to Drawbridge Way. _Death Comes to the Distillery!_ In big, bold typeface, _Midnight Stabbing on Kaldwin’s Bridge! Knife of Dunwall Behind Overseer Slaughter! Noble Bloodbath in Holger Square!_ _Death in the Eels, Death in the Hatters, Death in the Bottle Street Gang_ \- death, death, and more death, under the flyers for the Golden Cat, next to worn wanted posters showing dark hoods and Whaler masks.

The plague emptied a cell block in Coldridge and walled the nobles up in their estates, and more of them came, on cheap stock, under streetlamps - _Spectral Assassin Stalks the Night!_ Soon the Overseers reappeared with the music boxes and the hounds, and in days on every harried corner new headlines appeared, yellower and with bigger letters and pinned over the torn-off scraps - _The Knife of Dunwall Outsider’s Agent! Heretical Killer Still on the Loose!_

And as the plague shuttered the windows and emptied the rat-thick streets, the tattered papers piled in the alleys and dissolved in the drains and sailed on the wind - and above a picture of a faceless man they read, _Who is the Knife of Dunwall?_

 

* * *

 

“‘Grisly Passions in the Estate District! The Knife of Dunwall Strikes Again.’”

Daud read the headline off a stolen bulletin from his seat on Joanna’s couch, his boots off and his feet propped up and his coat hanging on the rack. A gull flew by the balcony window and drew a shadow across the floor, and Joanna slid onto the cushions beside him and helped him out of his gloves.

“‘Grisly passions?’ What, do they think you desecrated the corpse?”

“It says before I came to see him he had a fight with his mistress.” Daud peeked at the bulletin’s other side. “She wasn’t happy with his visits to your fine establishment.” Then back to the front. “Looks like the Watch thinks she was the one that had him killed.”

“Was she?”

“No.”

“Huh.” Joanna uncorked her oil bottle. “Wonder where his wife is in all this.”

“I don’t know.” Daud skimmed over the ads for stockings and Cullero cigars. “But I have it on good authority he was sneaking out with a Tyvian deckhand, too.” He scratched a patch of missed stubble under his chin. “When they say ‘a lover in every port,’ you’d think they’d mean different ports.”

Joanna cuffed up the sleeve on his sword-hand side. “Well, I’ve never been with one. I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

“What? A deckhand?”

“That’s right.”

“Half as long,” Daud quipped, without looking up from the paper. “Twice as rough.”

Joanna paused - then stifled a puckish grin when she realized what he meant.

“Oh.”

“Anyway.” Daud crossed his legs and held his bare forearm out. “Your girl Loulia got him nice and drunk. Was the easiest drop in weeks.”

“Thanks… I think.” Joanna slicked up her fingertips and dabbed a quick jasmine spot behind his ear. “You’ve got me working overtime. You’re lucky you’re handsome.”

“That’s charitable of you.”

“Why?”

“I think I look like a wrung-out dishcloth.”

“Fine. A little _less_ wrung-out than everyone else in Dunwall.” Joanna palmed and slapped up his forearm to get the blood flowing. “Just tell me you don’t have any more targets for a while. The rate you’re going, you’re going to take years off my life, and Prudence is already tetchy about my age.”

“Prudence should mind her own business.”

“That she’ll never do.”

Joanna gently popped his fingers as she decompressed his joints. Daud set the bulletin aside and gave himself over to her lavishing, and tossed his other arm over the back of the couch and gave her a studied-casual stare.

And Joanna sighed.

“You do have another, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Outsider’s eyes.” Joanna squeezed between his forefinger and thumb. “Do you ever take a break?”

“His name’s Tobias Blackburn. He’s a voting head in Parliament.” Daud relaxed as he explained. “He wants to demilitarize the Watch and roll out tax cuts for the poor, so naturally someone backing the conservatives wants him dead.”

“Because _that’s_ reasonable.”

“What do you expect? It’s Parliament.”

Joanna shrugged.

“The client didn’t give me much to go on, but I’ve heard he’s paranoid about the plague. Comes here to take the waters almost three times a week.” Daud made a soft, distressed noise when Joanna found a sore spot. “He’s tall. Heavy. Got a scar on his lip. You can’t miss him.”

“Oh, uh… sure, I’ve seen him.” Joanna pinched at his long tendons. “He’s a regular. Here today, actually. I passed him when I was coming to see you.”

Daud yawned and flexed his wrist, and Joanna moved up to his elbow, then…

“Wait a minute.”

“What?”

“About the plague…” Joanna dropped his arm - “did you say his name was Blackburn?”

“That’s him.”

Joanna shoved him off the couch. “Oh no. You’ve got to go _now_.”

“What?” Daud stumbled over himself as he got to his feet. “Why?”

“One of his neighbors just died of it. He’s bailing out of Dunwall tonight!” Joanna gathered up handfuls of her bustle. “He told one of the girls at his last visit, I didn’t think about what day it was…”

Daud hobbled over and shoved himself into his boots. “Where’s he’s going after he leaves?”

“I…”

“Carriage or boat?”

“I don’t know…”

One of Daud’s feet caught in the leather, and he yanked it up over his heel. “Well? Where is he?”

Joanna hesitated. She pictured Daud standing over a body, and blood in the fresh-cleaned pool, and someone coming in on him, and her chest tightened at the thought…

“He’s… he’s in the Steam Room. He should be down there by himself.” She clenched her hands together as she watched Daud reach for her door. “Do whatever you have to do. Just… try to keep it clean.”

 

* * *

 

As soon as Daud closed up the Scarlet Room behind himself, he looked left, looked right, and took off as quietly as he could.

He slipped past portraits. Plants. A harp. The empty hookah by the Smoking Room. He spied the back of a man’s head over the top of the nearby banquette couch, and when a girl came up for air - _oh._ Busy. He averted his eyes and pressed on. When he’d almost made it to the Gold Room another disheveled girl came out, and he stopped - looked left, right - and ducked behind the folding screen - and as she fussed over her stocking he monitored her through the gaps.

He waited one moment. Two. _Breathe in through the nose. Out through the mouth._ Daud’s senses itched - three, four - he tapped it out on his thigh - five, six - and when she gave up on the stocking and half-staggered out to the balcony, he made a break for the iron railing and light-footed it down the curving stairs.

A noble in a blue coat emerged from the parlor and passed Daud on his way up. Daud turned his head and searched his pockets and took an interest in the hanging plants, and with a few steps down and with a few steps down the smell of the noble’s cologne faded. _Gone._

And when he hit the bottom and came out in the open he started to count.

 _One, two, three courtesans. One, two, four, eight, ten patrons._ He edged between a girl with a tray and a drink table against the round wall - took a glass, filled it with water, polished an apple to buy some time. _Ivory Room right. Statue behind. Steam Room left._ Then he set down the apple, took the glass, and wove through the web of bare shirtsleeves, around the couches, to the other drink table - and left the glass with studied laziness - and just as an off-duty Watch officer peered down from the upper floor, he stole into the tile entryway and knelt to tie an imaginary shoelace.

 _One. Two. Three,_ he timed. _Four. Five._

_Safe._

So he stood. And he tiptoed down. And he listened along the bare stone wall.

A drip. A trickle of water. No footsteps… above… or below.

_Still safe?_

_Still safe._

The fish circled in the center pond as Daud eased himself out into the light. One of the private rooms, open, empty. The other shut. As quick as he skirted over and came in he inched the heavy door closed, and grabbed at his hip - no sword? He patted his other side - no gloves, no wristbow…

“Violetta?”

Daud’s pulse jumped.

“Is that you?”

Blackburn had situated himself with his back to the doorway in the steaming pool. _Weapon,_ Daud told himself. _Find a weapon. Something silent. Anything._ He glanced at the basin - _nothing_ \- then to the tray on the floor - a jar of cream - a cup - a washcloth - aftershave, and…

A straight razor.

Blackburn adjusted the mask over his eyes. “Well, come in, I guess.”

Daud crouched behind the massage table - and _tink!_ \- he picked the razor up.

“The usual today, dear. And take an extra five minutes, if you can.” Blackburn spread out along the water’s edge. “I won’t be seeing you for a while. I’d like to make this one count.”

Daud took a step closer and tried to size Blackburn up. The pool - the angle of the stomach - he unsheathed the razor - the cramped space…

“Your footsteps sound different…” Blackburn said - “have you put on some weight?”

Another step.

“Hello?”

And another.

“Violetta?” Blackburn shifted with discomfort. “Who’s there?!”

Daud splayed his fingers over Blackburn’s forehead, and he murmured into Blackburn's ear…

“Hiram Burrows sends his regards.”

And he drove the razor into the side of Blackburn’s neck.

Blackburn thrashed. He kicked. He gurgled. His forearm slapped Daud’s leg. Daud doubled down and Blackburn struggled and Daud’s boots squeaked on the wet stone, and he bashed into the table as water sloshed over the sides. He dragged the blade across - deeper - farther - and with one great tug he wrenched it out, and blood sprayed against the tile, on the basin, on Blackburn's folded clothes.

Daud reeled back. Blackburn writhed one last time from the force of him pulling away, and spattered Daud down his collar, his front, his sleeves, his arms, the top of his pants.

And Blackburn sank all the way underwater.

And the room went still.

Blood bloomed into the water - darker - and darker - until it had stained the whole bath red. Daud wiped away the moist heat and patted down his sides - his soaked shirt stuck to his skin, and dark rivulets ran down the wall.

 _Try to keep it clean,_ she said.

Daud leaned against the table’s edge and drew a ragged breath. Something smarted. A bruise coming, maybe, where his back met his hip. The steam pricked into his face and hands, and his heart beat against his ribs - with something old and restless and uncomfortably close to lust.

So he craned toward the ceiling and mumbled into the Void.

“Billie?”

He heard a soft voice in the back of his mind. _Yes, Daud?_

“Send a couple of cleanup men to the Golden Cat.” Daud blotted blood onto his brow. “I’ve… I’ve got a problem here.”

 

* * *

 

Lavender. Jasmine. Peppermint. Rosewood. Chamomile.

Joanna stalled in front of her open cabinet and rearranged her bottles of oil. _Peppermint first? It’s almost empty. No, Lavender. It has the most._ The glass sides rattled against each other as she took them out - put them in - took them back out, put them back in. _Peppermint. Rosewood. Chamomile._ Anything to keep her mind busy, and her muscles easy, and her nerves smooth…

_Jasmine first? Daud seems to like it._

_Hrgh._ She pinched her temples. _You were trying to_ not _think about that._

She put the jasmine oil in first anyway and stuffed the rest in after. Chamomile, peppermint - oh, it didn’t matter.

_Violetta wasn’t down there yet. She’ll be all right._

So Joanna shut the cabinet and got up, and she started to walk away - and under the toe of her slipper something squished.

She leaped backward so fast she almost tripped over herself, and saw a dead rat on the floor between the wall and the trim on the rug. She cringed and snatched at the empty air for - a hair clip? Tweezers? _Something!_ \- and when she found nothing she ripped open her vanity drawer and seized a long, white glove, and put it on and picked the rat up by its tail and tiptoe-ran across the room.

And she burst out onto the balcony and pitched it into the river.

“ _Ugh!”_

It splashed.

She bent over the railing and watched the ripples fade. _No… wait._ She peeled the glove off and threw it into the breeze. _The glove too._

When it disappeared she rubbed her fingers together, but - no, they still itched with disgust. She hurried back inside and ran her bathtub as hot as she could, and when the air had squeaked out of the pipes she scrubbed her palms together until they both felt clean.

And just as she twisted the water off, she heard the click of her closing door.

Her eyes shot up. Daud stood in the middle of her carpet, his face beaded with sweat, his jaw spattered and his blood-soaked shirt clinging in the creases of his chest.

“Daud.” Joanna let a nervous laugh slip out as she dried her hands. “Outsider’s… what happened to you?”

He didn’t answer. He just unbuttoned his collar.

“C-come on,” Joanna stammered, “are you hurt?”

Daud stalked forward, leaving dark footprints in his wake.

“Daud, now… listen.” Joanna gulped. “I’m going to get you a bath…”

In one, two steps Daud closed in on her, and his arm swung around her side…

Joanna tensed, and held the air tight in her lungs…

And Daud cupped his hand onto her throat - and swiped a red trail up her cheek.

Joanna’s breath hitched in her mouth. Daud sunk his teeth into her ear. Then lower - into the crook of her neck - and he pulled down her cincher straps, with a strange, firm-gentle touch that streaked fingerprints over her skin.

Joanna’s pulse raced. The metallic smell seared in her nose. The hitch became an exhale became a pleasured sigh, and her eyelids fluttered shut as Daud pushed her down onto the sheets. Seat first. Shoulders next. He kicked his feet out of his boots. Joanna flexed her heels and arched her back and for a moment clung to the back of his shirt, before her arms fell away from his shoulder blades and landed limp over the mattress’ edge.

And Daud crawled over her thin frame like a wolf over a kill, bloodying her wrists - her breasts - the inside of her thigh - as the crescent pin slid down her hair and her legs curled around his waist.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for discussion of reproductive issues.

 

 

* * *

 

“Hey, did you hear about Lord Blackburn?”

“Didn’t he just disappear?”

Two weeks later Daud wove his way back through the Cat’s dim halls, and listened to the parlor chatter that drifted through the haze of perfume and noise.

“That’s what I heard. He just vanished.”

“I wonder where he went…”

Daud kept his head low as he left the conversations behind. Two girls on the main floor danced with each other as a noble watched and slurped his drink - and Daud passed a pack of gangsters, arguing around a hookah and playing cards.

“He probably just skipped out to the country to sit out the plague.”

“Do you really think he did that, though?” One took a fat puff on his pipe. “I mean, we don’t know if he’s alive, do we? What if he got did in by the Knife of Dunwall?”

“The Knife o’ Dunwall’s a myth.”

“Hey, come on. No he’s not.”

“You ask me, half the time these nobles end up dead, it’s the maids and butlers that finally snapped and cut ‘em up.” One of the others gathered up the cards and shuffled the deck. “The Watch just made this whole ‘Knife’ thing to blame it on somebody else. Don’t want the poor to get ideas about armed rebellion, you know what I mean…”

But before Daud could pay attention too long, he heard a thin voice at his side.

“Hey, handsome…”

Daud kept walking.

A girl in a green bustle peeled herself off the wall. “Have I seen you here before?”

“I don’t know. Have you?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. We’re friends now.” The girl splayed her hand over his sleeve. “You know, you look real interesting. Why don’t you tell me how you got that scar?”

“No,” he muttered. “No, thank you. I’m here for…”

“The usual?”

Daud flinched. The girl slipped her fingers off him and slunk away. Prudence emerged from behind one of the drapes like a ghost coming through a wall, in her wide-cut trousers and her moth-eaten fur and her cheekbone-breaking rings.

Daud crossed his arms. Something about the question chafed.

“The usual.”

“Oh.” Prudence took a quick puff on her cigarette holder. “I’m sorry, forgive me. I didn’t see you come to the front desk.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then you’re scheduling in private now.”

“Maybe.”

“Yes, she does like to do that.”

Daud put his foot in front of himself to tell her, _all right, Prudence, I’m going now._

“You know, you’ve become quite the regular, haven’t you?” Prudence stepped right after him. “I didn’t realize you two would hit it off so well.”

Daud chose his words. “She’s good.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Prudence grinned. “I’m just surprised. I’d assumed at some point she would’ve gotten too… mouthy for you.”

Daud prickled.

“What?”

“You know how she talks back to her clients.”

Daud lay the sarcasm on thick. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, then far be it from me to introduce a problem where there isn’t one.” Prudence flashed him a pair of big, innocent eyes. “You know what they say…” a theatrical pause - “to every man his taste.”

Daud didn’t answer. Prudence took another drag. An uneasiness settled between them for a minute too long… and she blew smoke in just the right direction for it to float up into his face.

“Have fun.”

 

* * *

 

As soon as Daud made sure he’d shaken Prudence and she’d crawled back behind the drapes, he sidled up to the Scarlet Room doors and knocked one-two-three times.

_“Who is it?”_

“Room for one more?”

 _“Oh.”_ A drawer scraped open inside. _“It’s you. Um…”_ a glass lid clinked - _“Just a minute.”_

Daud crossed his ankles - and studied his fingers - and leaned into the paneled wood. He heard bare feet on carpet… a swish of cloth…

“A Serkonan minute?”

_“Daud, I’m naked.”_

He smirked. “‘S never been a problem before.”

Someone downstairs in the parlor plucked at a harp for no one to hear…

“I may start without you…”

 _“All right, all right!”_ The lock clicked. _“Come in.”_

Daud opened the door just wide enough to fit him sideways and slunk in. He found Joanna at her vanity table, a little rushed but fully dressed, dabbing a washcloth at her hairline and neck.

“You’re such a gentleman for waiting.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“Of course I am.” Joanna patted down one of her armpits and gestured for him to come closer. “Come on over. Who do I get to gossip about today?”

“No one. Unless you want to.” Daud’s belts jingled as he loosened them around his coat. “I’m just here for maintenance.”

“A spit and polish? Forget it. Go downstairs.”

Daud stifled a chuckle and hung the belts on her coat rack.

“You know, I like you, so I let you in, but you really should start scheduling first.” Joanna bathed under the other arm. “Instead of finding the gaps in my schedule and just showing up.”

“How should I sign the guestbook?” Daud snarked. “‘The Knife of Dunwall?’”

“I don’t know. I’m sure if we put our heads together we could think of something.” Joanna put the cloth down. “Elijah Goodhead… Harvey O’Toole…” a quick spray from her atomizer - “Corvo Attano?”

A grunt.

“Come on.” Joanna snickered. “It was a _little_ funny.”

Daud shed his heavy coat and studied the fake peonies.

“All right, never mind.” Joanna rubbed her wrists together and stood up from her chair. “Who was it this time? A gang lord? Another member of Parliament?” She repositioned the feather boa that threatened to fall off the edge of her screen. “You didn’t ask me about this one. I’ve been waiting in suspense.”

Daud awkwardly inspected his gloves. “Is it that obvious?”

“I can always tell when you’ve just killed someone. You give it off like musk.” Joanna flourished with the boa around her neck. “So _masculine_ and _aggressive_ \- oh, it makes my insides _rot._ ”

Daud flushed at the tips of his ears. “Wait. Really?”

“You’ve got blood on your shoes.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you hate my carpet, or something?”

Steam rose from Joanna’s clean white tub.

“No…”

“I mean, what did it ever do to you?”

“Nothing. It’s a carpet.”

“Well then stop tracking in blood.” Joanna held onto the faucet and waited for the tub to fill all the way up. “And be nice to my bedsheets, too. I’m running out of ways to explain myself. When the girls did laundry after Blackburn they thought I’d had a weeper in here.”

“I’ve never thought about your carpet one way or the other.”

“Oh. So your mother never taught you to wipe your feet.”

“My mother taught me a lot of things.” Daud unfastened his top boot buckles. “Watch your back. Trust your gut. Don’t make an enemy of a witch.”

“That’s funny. That’s what people used to call _my_ mother.” Joanna tossed in a good shake of white powder that smelled like iris and bergamot. “Well, by ‘people’ I mean Overseers. If they’re still people anymore.”

“I’ve never bothered to look under their masks to find out.”

“No… my mother was a midwife. The best Dunwall ever had.” Joanna fell into a loving lilt as the water fizzed. “Patients would come from all over the city to see her. Poor. Hungry. She never let them down.”

Daud listened.

“Sometimes she’d slip someone a bone charm and tell them to keep it safe, and I never thought anything about it. That was her job. To take care of them.” Joanna stirred the roiling froth until bubbles puffed out. “Except when I was seventeen, the Overseers beat down our door, and…” she wilted - “took her away to Coldridge. I never saw her again.”

Daud frowned and stopped unbuttoning his shirt.

“For witchcraft, they said.” Joanna let the bubbles go flat. “That’s what people call anything they don’t understand.”

Daud finished off his buttons. “And some things they do.”

“But, you know, it’s funny. If anything, I’m the one who grew up to be the witch.” Joanna tried to pick up the pieces of the conversation, if she could. “Floaty words. Bath salts. It’s all a big pink wash on real life.” She shrugged and summoned him over with an ironic smile. “I don’t know what the Outsider thinks, but it works just fine for me.”

As he advanced on her she churned the tub once more for good measure.

“Besides…” she lay it on thick - “if I’d never come here, I’d’ve never met you.”

“You want your money, don’t you?”

“Under the flower vase.”

Daud quirked his eyebrow… and made a show of thinking it over… and hooked his arm around her waist.

“What are you doing?”

Daud bumped her into the edge of the tub…

Joanna laughed despite herself. _“Daud!”_

Daud’s shirt fell to the floor as he dug his nose into her neck, and she pawed wet soap onto his chest as he bit her ear…

And someone knocked on her door.

“ _Jo?”_

Joanna froze - then rolled her eyes.

“I’m with a client…”

 _“It’s me, Genevieve. I’m sorry._ _Can I… uh… talk to you?”_

Joanna’s expression darkened.

_“It’s… about that thing we talked about.”_

“A… all right, sweetie, hold on. I’ll be right out.”

Joanna looked back to Daud - and gave him an unconvincing smile.

“Sorry about all this. I can’t imagine what’s come up.” She patted his gut. “Why don’t you get yourself started? I’ll only be a minute.”

Daud drew his arms back from her as she wriggled out of his grasp. Joanna swiped something off the top of the cabinet before she shut the door - and as Daud turned away, the handle clicked - as she locked him in.

Two pairs of footsteps quickened. Two voices hushed. Suspicion soured in Daud’s mind and he slid away from the tub, and snuck up to the doorway and knelt low enough to peer through the keyhole.

And he saw Joanna sink onto the cushioned bench outside, next to a girl he didn’t recognize with curly honey-blonde hair.

 _“I’m sorry, I just got worried.”_ Genevieve clutched her stomach. _“It’s starting to feel like monthly cramps.”_

Joanna held Genevieve’s shoulders. _“Have you been drinking the tea I gave you?”_

_“Of course. Three cups a day.”_

_“Good. That means it’s working.”_

Genevieve rubbed her eye with the back of her wrist. _“I didn’t know it was gonna hurt this much.”_

 _“That’s my fault. I should’ve told you. Nobody knows the first time.”_ Joanna unfastened Genevieve’s cincher and felt around underneath. _“It is your first time, isn’t it?”_

Genevieve nodded.

_“Outsider’s blood. No wonder you’re scared.”_

_“I’ve been trying to just work like normal all day and not think about it too much, but…”_ Genevieve rubbed again and smeared some of her makeup onto her cheek - _“you know how it is when you don’t wanna think about things, it just means you can’t stop, and I just… I just…”_ she slumped over - _“why does it have to be me?!”_

Genevieve broke down into her angry, helpless sobs, and Joanna snatched her up and held her fast to her chest.

 _“Shh.”_ She ran her hand down Genevieve’s back. _“It’s all right. In another day this will all be over.”_

Genevieve sniffed. _“I’m gonna die.”_

 _“No you’re not.”_ Joanna stroked the top of Genevieve’s head. _“I’ve never lost a girl doing this, and I’m not about to now.”_

Genevieve hiccuped and blinked a tear away.

 _“Now go on. Go upstairs. I want you to lie down.”_ Joanna let the hug dissolve. _“The minute you see blood, have someone come get me. I’ve freed up the rest of my afternoon.”_

 _“All right.”_ Genevieve stood up on unsteady knees and left the frame of the keyhole. _“Thank you so much, Jo. I mean it. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”_

Joanna rose, and her shoes squeaked as she headed back toward the door. Daud scrambled away from the keyhole as fast as he could and sprang to his feet, and threw his shirt on and shoved the hemline down the waistband of his pants…

And when she came in he met her with a frigid stare.

Joanna slid all the way inside. “What?”

Silence.

“Daud? What’s wrong?”

Daud buttoned the lowest hole on his shirt.

“Your mother wasn’t a midwife.”

A gray, terrified pallor came over Joanna’s face.

“My mother… was whatever her patients needed her to be.”

“And so are you.”

Joanna tightened her stomach to quell the shaking in her ribs.

“How many do you do a month, anyway?” Daud did up his cuffs. “Do you get the pennyroyal from Serkonos? I hear it’s cheaper down there.”

“You’ve been in a lot of dark corners, Daud. But this is one you’ll never know.” Joanna’s bustle swished as she took an uneasy step. “And I’m not going to waste my breath trying to justify it to you.”

“I don’t care what you do with these women. I care that you were hiding it.” Daud buttoned the next one, two buttons up on his shirt with a vengeance. “When I took this deal, I expected an equal exchange.”

“Equal?” Joanna scoffed. “You thought this was _equal?”_

“You know my targets back four months…”

“You know what you know about…”

“And halfway up the river, and…”

“I have to have _some_ power over you!”

Daud glared at her.

 _“Over_ me?” He pointed to himself. “What I agreed to was mutual.”

“Well, it’s not!” Joanna cried. “It never will be! Nothing between a man and woman is.” She marched up so close to Daud she almost crushed his toes. “You could’ve overstepped that deal the minute I let my guard down, and if I hadn't been keeping secrets I wouldn't have had any way to defend myself!”

Daud snarled…

“You can leave town - change your name - you rat me out for this, I’m dead!” Joanna clenched her fists and gulped down a deep, shuddering breath. “And I will _never_ let myself be at the mercy of a man like you!”

“I don’t have to listen to this…”

“Then _get out!”_

“I was leaving!”

Daud stormed toward the door and Joanna shoved him the rest of the way, stomping over the brown, bloody footprints already dry on the rug. The flower vase rattled as Daud yanked at his coats and belts, and Joanna yelled at him from the open doorway -

_“And don’t come back!”_

And when Daud slammed the door on her she crumpled onto the duvet, cupping her hands over her mouth as she made an anguished sound.

 

* * *

 

And Daud burst back into the Chamber of Commerce in his cloud of thick, black ash, as the new recruits gasped and dropped their papers and poisons and swords, and he ploughed through them with an angry stride as soon as his feet hit the ground.

He knocked chairs out of his way without looking and stepped on the fallen paperwork, and he bumped into a desk and sent the pen on top rolling off the edge. His men shrank in their coats and Billie jumped when he came barging past, shaking dust from the bookshelves and the groaning floorboards.

“Daud!”

No answer.

Billie chased after him. “What _happened?_ Where _were_ you?”

Still nothing.

“Daud? Are we in danger?!”

Daud wrenched one of the hallway drapes aside. “Just leave me alone…”

“Well, I can’t do that. Someone’s here for you…”

“Someone?”

“Yes, someone…”

Daud kept on through the next hall, unrelenting. “Who?”

“Maybe you’d better see for yourself…”

“Someone? Here? In person?!”

“Uh…”

But Daud blew through his office doors before he could hear what Billie said, and saw Hiram Burrows at his tall windows like a long, pernicious egg - his feet together at the ankles and his coat cuffs crossed behind his back.

Daud grit his teeth.

“How did you find where I live?”

Burrows dusted off his lapels. “Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Answer the question.”

“I’m offended you’d even ask.” Burrows dripped with his signature brand of insincere calm. “You’re not a very gracious host, are you?”

Daud wrinkled his nose. “You do leave a certain smell in a place.”

“I’m surprised you notice in the Flooded District.”

“Lady Boyle wears strong perfume.”

“So do the ladies at the Cat.”

Daud fumed.

Burrows smacked his lips. “Glass houses, Daud.”

A crow landed on one of the window sills and pecked at the glass. _Tap. Tap. Tap._

“Just go away.” Daud stalked across the room. “I’m not in the mood to deal with you.”

Burrows trailed after him. “I’m not here for a social call. I have more work.”

“Too bad.”

“That’s no way to talk to the man who pays your way in life, now, is it?”

“I don’t know if I’ve made myself clear before, but I don’t like your work.” When Daud reached his desk he gathered up the stack of envelopes on top of his map. “You pay well and on time, and that’s the most I can say for you.”

“I thought you’d feel flattered that I trust you with high-profile targets.”

“I don’t.” Daud paced to the closest safe-deposit cabinet and stuffed them in one of the drawers. “They’re complicated. They’re dangerous. I’ve lost some of my best men on your jobs.”

“But you made such short work of Blackburn…”

Daud rammed the drawer shut. “Blackburn was a _mess._ I almost got caught.”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

“Yours for not telling me he was leaving Dunwall at the last minute.”

“Is that what it takes? A change of plans, and the Knife of Dunwall falls down on the job?” Burrows baited harder and harder as he closed in on Daud’s personal space. “I must say, you’re not a fraction of the man I thought you were…”

And Daud whirled around and backed Burrows up against his own portrait, and aimed his finger at the dead center of Burrows’ chest.

“Don’t push me.”

Burrows sneered. “I push whoever I want.”

“I’ve killed a lot of men for you, Burrows. But you’re not good business anymore.”

“Then what are you going to do?” Burrows asked. _“Kill_ me?"

Daud eyed Burrows’ high gold-trimmed collar. “I could.”

“Fine!”

Daud drew back a little.

“I dare you.”

A pregnant pause.

“Go ahead,” Burrows bluffed. “Kill me. And undo all the years of my plans that _you_ put in place.”

Daud gingerly let go.

“You think the last ten nobles I paid you to kill were because I felt like it?” Burrows jostled Daud aside. “That Forsyte was cheating me out of my fortune, or Blackburn was stealing Lady Boyle? Blackburn was a _cog!”_ They circled each other on the open floor like two men ready to duel, and Burrows fell with quick comfort into speech-maker’s showmanship. “A cog in a machine that you’ve been building since the first time I hired you. And now that Blackburn is gone, all that’s left… is the master stroke.”

Daud roiled. His sword arm tingled. The stress began to ring in his ears.

“But by all means!” Burrows dropped into Daud’s chair. “Go ahead. Kill me.” He picked up the penknife on Daud’s desk by the audiograph machine. “And when the Watch goes through my business and sees what I’d almost done, they’ll find a trail of blood and filth leading all… the way back…” he stabbed it straight down into the Flooded District on the map - “to you.”

Daud’s eye twitched at the screeching chip of metal on stone.

“It’s a long way to the bottom, Daud.” Burrows reclined, and the chair creaked. “And I _will_ take you down with me.”

Daud planted his hands atop one of his cold metal crates. His head bowed. His strong shoulders sank.

_You’ve been in a lot of dark corners._

He breathed in - and breathed out.

“Who is it?”

Burrows steepled his fingers - and a sick grin bloomed on his face.

“Shut the door.”


	7. Chapter 6

 

 

* * *

 

_“What’s the matter with you?!”_

_“Get away from me!”_

_“Stop!”_

Joanna raced up the Cat’s service stairs with her robe gathered in her fists, as frightened, angry voices came from the dormitory room at the end of the hall.

_“Don’t touch me!”_

Thunder rumbled outside. The window panes rattled. Joanna rounded one wooden post, then two, her breath short and a stitch in her side and her shins overstretched, and she bounded down the creaking hallway where three half-dressed girls stood petrified.

“Why are you all standing out here?!”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“I just heard yelling…”

“I don’t know…”

“All right, out of my way, out of my way.” Joanna elbowed them aside. “What in the Void’s name is going on in here -”

“Jo, don’t come in! She’s got the plague!”

Joanna burst in through the doorway before she could stop herself. Five, six, seven other girls swarmed around a bed with a pillow thrown to the floor, and one of the red-haired parlor girls sat knock-kneed on the unmade sheets - and coughed dark drops of blood onto her hand and her yellow skirt.

“Genevieve, you bitch!” _Cough!_ “I told you not to tell anyone!”

“I had to go to _someone!”_ Genevieve cried. “You’re contagious!”

“No I’m not!”

“All right, stop! Both of you!” Joanna threw herself between them. “Don’t call Genevieve that. Now, how well do you remember your clients?”

The girl wiped her mouth. “I guess pretty well…”

“Can you think of _anyone_ who was coughing? Or-or looked tired, or… bad skin?”

The girl whined in distress…

“Well?!”

“That… Morlish barber from Drapers Ward…” The girl’s hands fidgeted in her lap - “he came in early last week, he seemed like he was losing weight…”

“Outsider’s blood,” Joanna swore, “that barber died three days ago…”

The girl retched, and the others screamed and crashed into each other as they shrank away.

“All right!” Joanna yelled over them. “Everybody just… stay calm!” She bumped and scraped through the crowd on her way back toward the open door. “I’m going out to get Dr. Galvani! Don’t do _anything_ until I get back!”

 

* * *

 

The girl with the feather boa… the girl with the fur neckline…

Joanna ran down the main staircase as she wrestled herself into her civilian clothes, and the Cat’s winding portrait gallery flew past her ears as she went. New courtesans. Old ones. The girl fixing her earring. The girl with the rose tattoo. The sole of her old boot thudded on the tile when she leaped down the last step, her drawers stuffed into old, dark breeches and a matching jacket and pinstripe shirt, and without thinking about an umbrella she flung open the wide front doors…

But before she could shove her other boot on and take off through the yard, she saw a Watch officer out on the portico, shivering in the cold blue dusk.

“Evening, miss.”

Joanna skidded to a halt. “What?!”

The officer ducked out of the way of a sideways sheet of rain, and it splattered under the roofing, inches from the hem of his coat.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Oh.” Joanna looked down at her hasty dressing job. “No. I…” she set her boot down and did a half-hearted job of smoothing her shirt… “I’m on my way out, I’m in a hurry, I’ve got to get someone…”

“Well, I’m sorry, miss, but I have to stop you. This is important.”

Joanna let go of her shirt tails… and worry crept into her bones.

“Are you the one in charge here?” The officer asked.

“I…” Joanna peeked over her shoulder. No Prudence. “Go on.”

“I’m here on behalf of the City Watch. I have to give you some bad news.”

The hair on Joanna’s neck stood up - and her thoughts drifted to the girl upstairs.

“This is about the plague, isn’t it?”

“No. I’m afraid not.” The officer took his helmet off and held it to his chest. “Empress Jessamine Kaldwin was killed today, at 4:45 this afternoon.”

And before he’d even finished his sentence, Joanna’s stomach sank like lead.

“I’m sorry.” The officer put his helmet back on. “She was attacked in Dunwall Tower. Lady Emily is nowhere to be found.”

Everything Joanna tried to say stuck in her craw on the way up. _My condolences? I'm sorry?_ Nothing seemed right, or good enough.

“It’s our job at the Watch to go throughout Dunwall and notify its citizens…”

Joanna drew her jacket tighter around her chest. “But who…”

“Right now we only have one suspect, the Lord Protector, Corvo Attano. He was the only one on the scene when the Royal Spymaster arrived.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Joanna argued. “I thought he wasn’t back in Dunwall yet.”

The officer glanced off into the yard to check on his guard escorts. Pacing… fighting with an umbrella as it threatened to blow inside-out…

“Listen.” The officer hushed and bent in close enough that Joanna got a whiff of cigar smoke. “I’m not supposed to go off-script, but I have a bad feeling about this.” He tucked his chin deep into his collar so no one could read his mouth. “I’m a detective. I’ve been on this force for 35 years. I can’t tell you if he killed her… but I know something here is wrong.”

Joanna nodded, but kept her answer to herself.

“I think dark times are coming. You girls keep yourselves safe.”

“We will, Officer,” Joanna murmured. “We always do.”

“We don’t have any details yet regarding her memorial…” The officer straightened up and returned to his script - “but as soon as we do, we’ll release a bulletin with everything you need to know. And if you see anything suspicious, _please,_ report it to your local squad. The killer may not have worked alone.”

“Thank you. I…” Joanna answered in a flat tone - “I guess I will.”

“You tell the girls however you see fit.” The officer tipped his helmet. “Good night.”

The bushes in the courtyard beat against each other, and a sudden gust brought another sheet of rain. The officer put his helmet back on one more time and braved his way down the portico steps - and Joanna watched him leave as lightning cracked over the chimney tops.

 

* * *

 

The storm raged into the evening and left a damp chill in the rafters and the stairwells, and the courtesans hovered in anxious poses in the dormitory hall.

One sat in a broken chair and held her knees. One bit her nails to fight the urge to smoke. Dr. Galvani sat the sick one down on a bare mattress and felt her glands and her damp forehead, and listened to her lungs through a stethoscope while she coughed into a cotton mask.

 _Come closer_. He scooted the glowing oil lamp over. _Let me look at your skin._

And Joanna trudged down to her room, her toes aching in her shoes.

She sighed - and swayed to and fro, in a listless, thoughtless line - and tucked the still-wet tendrils on her temples into the twist of her hair. Downwind from the Scarlet Room Violetta coaxed a client out of his seat - Joanna watched - and waited - _please go away_ \- and when the two of them skulked off Joanna fell against her doors with a _thunk_.

_Ugh._

Something about the wood felt clammy, and goosebumps rose on her forearms. A vein of stinging cold seeped through the thin crack in the doorway, and as she lay her ear against the panels the rain seemed… awfully loud…

_Oh no._

She twisted both the handles as fast as she could and bolted in.

The rain splashed on the sill across from her bed, and Joanna rushed to the open window. She took hold of the soaking frame, grunted loud - _hngh! -_ and heaved it closed, and the last of the freezing water dribbled off and muffled against the glass.

And something shuffled behind her.

Joanna stayed statue-still. A rat? No, too big. Far too big. It shuffled again, louder - she braced herself to run - and heard the slow, rhythmic drag of… leather gloves across the rug?

And the figure emerged from the shadows, one hesitant limb at a time.

Joanna bit back a gasp. Daud knelt beside her headboard and dripped from his sodden coat, his head low and his fingers fanned and his hair sticking to his brow.

At the sight of him an angry, nervous heat rose in Joanna’s cheeks - and she fought to keep her composure as her face twisted with contempt.

“What are you doing here?”

No answer.

“I thought I told you not to come back.”

Daud sounded tired and hoarse. “I know.”

A beat.

“I couldn’t think of where else to go.”

Thunder rolled again in the distance, and a raindrop ran off Daud's nose. Joanna thought of the detective, and the Lord Protector, and remembered the stains on her carpet in visits past - and her skin, and the sheets, and the baths that left red handprints on her tub - and a sickness rose in her throat as it all settled into place.

“You did it, didn’t you?” She asked.

Another beat.

“You killed Empress Jessamine.”

And Daud’s heavy, stricken silence told her everything.

Joanna’s heart throbbed. The river churned. Drops pattered on the railing outside. She held onto the wall behind her to steady herself, and Daud stared at his knees, unblinking, somehow small and pitiful.

“Well?” She sharpened her voice to get through to him. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“I don’t care.” Daud studied the wristbow mounted on his glove. “Hit me. Turn me in. Kill me if you want.”

On _kill_ a tingle crawled up Joanna’s spine. She moved one - two - tentative steps away from the wall - and in the hazy moonlight she saw the rain-thinned red streaks on his shirt.

“Is that blood?”

 

* * *

 

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Joanna lay a wide, sloshing basin on the floor beside him. “No you don’t.”

“It’s not hers. Or mine.”

“I don’t even want to think about that right now.” She knelt in front of him. “Hold out your hands.”

No response.

“I said _hold them out.”_

So Daud held up his gloves with the countenance of a beaten dog.

Joanna tugged them off one squeaky, wet finger at a time. She set them aside and Daud kept his head low to avoid watching her work, as she looped one belt off, then the other - then wrestled him out of his coat - but when she reached for the collar of his shirt, he blocked her grasp.

“Joanna, what is this?”

“Put them _down.”_

“I can undress myself.”

“But you won’t.”

Daud’s shoulders slumped, and he dropped his hands into his lap.

So she undid the sopping shirt one covered button at a time - his wrinkled cuffs, then down his chest - and peeled the yoke off his collarbone and the stitches off his back.

 

* * *

 

Daud shivered and clutched himself as Joanna dunked his shirt in the basin.

“You’re really not going to turn me in, then.”

 _Splash._ “No.”

“Hnh.” He mustered a little surprise. “Part of me thought maybe you would.”

“Then you don’t know me that well.” Joanna lifted the bloody spot out. “I’m not a fool. I know they’d reopen everything else you’ve done.” She stretched it to and fro to examine how far the stain had spread. “They’d see how many of your targets came here. They’d tear this place apart.” She kept curt to hide her growing fear at the thought. “Find my tansy. My pennyroyal. I’d be as good as dead.”

Daud let her talk.

“I’ll have to reconcile it with myself, the part I played in all this.” Joanna split the stain in half and scrubbed the fading sides together. “But not now. I’ve got too many other things to worry about.”

“You didn’t,” Daud muttered.

“You and I are going to have to disagree on that.”

Joanna fumbled for the nail brush and ground it against a drying clot. She noticed Daud half-observing without helping as she plunged the shirt back in, then out - then more brushing - in and out - before she heard him speak again.

“You’re not very squeamish about blood, are you?”

Joanna gave him a withering look.

“I have to deal with you, don’t I?”

Daud deflated. “I guess you do.”

Joanna held the expression on him… before she returned to the wash.

“I’ve never had a girl die from what I put them through. But I have girls who bleed too much, as if their monthly courses weren’t hard enough.” She dunked the shirt back in the basin and kneaded it back and forth. “One of them throws up. A few of them are in so much pain they can’t work. Some of them can’t predict it. We have to wash the bedding. The drawers.”

Daud frowned a small, troubled frown. “Billie’s never asked for time off work.”

“That’s probably not the only thing Billie hasn’t told you about.”

Daud brought his legs up and draped his arms around his knees.

“I found one of those same girls not long ago with a bone charm in her hair.” Joanna swirled the shirt around. “I see it all the time. They’re desperate. It’s the only way they know to make it stop.”

“What do you do with them?”

Joanna raised the shirt one more time. “I tell them not to get caught.”

Daud watched the shower of water that fell back into the basin as Joanna wrung it out.

“You trust the Outsider.”

“More than the Abbey, anyway.” Joanna inspected the hemline for any leftover spots. “He’s helped me an awful lot for a man I’ve never seen.”

Daud hesitated - before he picked up his coat and the wet cloth.

“Well.” He dabbed at the first dark spot. “He and I don’t get along.”

“Let me guess.” Joanna gave it one last go-over with the nail brush. “The Void talked to you, and you talked back.”

“Something like that.”

Joanna rolled her eyes, as if to say _of course._

“He didn’t intervene before I killed her. But I think he knew this would go wrong.” Daud swiped another lock of his wet hair away from his forehead. “He tried to talk to me when it was over. Wanted to ridicule me. Twist the knife.”

Joanna put the brush aside and decided to hear him out.

“And he told me a name. ‘Delilah.’ Like knowing that would fix something.” Daud tightened at the mouth. “I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t care about him at all.”

He wiped the last of the blood off his coat. Joanna’s knees cracked as she stood and searched for a place to hang his shirt.

“Joanna?”

“What?”

“I can’t look myself in the eye.”

Joanna turned away. “That’s your problem.”

“How can you?”

The question curled in Joanna’s gut. The rain continued in an even _plit - plit - plit -_ off the balcony pillars and under the eaves - and she carefully hung his shirt on her coat rack, beside the hook for her robe.

“That’s mine.”


	8. Chapter 7

 

 

* * *

 

“That’s the rest of my stock. I won’t have more until next month.”

Blankets dangled from the iron balconies down Bloodox Way, their loose threads drifting up and down in the morning breeze. A gray haze hung over the rooftops. Blow flies buzzed near a leaking pipe. The voices of the Watch patrol echoed from Clavering Boulevard, and a man in a dirty brown jacket peeked around the corner to make sure they couldn’t see - near a weatherbeaten sign on the pillar that read: _Griff’s Curio Shop._

And Joanna stood beside him, counting a set of vials in her hand. Two with gold powder. Two with goldish-green. One with an amber oil.

“That’s all right. This looks like it’s going to be more than enough.”

Griff rubbed his wrinkly palms together to warm them. “Sounds like they’re taking to what you teach.”

“That’s sweet of you, but I wish that were why.” Joanna closed her fist around the vials to keep them safe. “We found another sick girl this morning. I’m scared we’re going to be shut down.”

Griff scoffed. “Prudence’ll have you back open before you can blink.”

Joanna unbuttoned her waistcoat. “You think so?”

“She’s too worried about her bottom line.”

“Well, you’re not wrong there.” Joanna stuffed the vials into an open patch in her waistcoat lining. “How much do I owe you?”

“Uhh…” Griff scratched his stubble and counted to himself, then - “Fifty each for the powders. Seventy-five for the oil.”

“Outsider’s eyes, Griff! Why don’t you take my leg while you’re at it, too?”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Griff sheepishly took her coin purse when she held it out. “The tansy’s coming from Morley now. I have to buy it from this one smuggler’s boat. They say they’re the only folks who can get it through the quarantine zone.” He snapped the purse open and pocketed her coins. “If you ask me, I think they’re lying, but I can’t find it anywhere else, so…” they clinked one after the other - 80, 90, 100, on and on. “I’m selling it to you almost at cost. It’s the best I can do.”

Joanna buttoned her waistcoat back up. “I know. You wouldn’t gouge me.”

“There are people in these alleys I would, but - no, not you.” Griff fastened his jacket, too. “You take care of yourself, you hear?”

“I will.”

“You’re doing your mother’s name proud.”

He flipped up his lapels and Joanna headed down the steps, bracing her fingerless glove on the dingy, worn gray stones.

A rat skittered by her ankle. The pipe kept leaking - _drip - drip_ \- onto the ground. She skirted around a dirty puddle as someone down in the storm drain retched. Some poor weeper, she figured. Too late for them now.

And as she trampled a weed growing out of the cobblestones, she heard a heavy footstep at the end of the street.

A chill crept through Joanna’s sleeves. _Just keep walking,_ she told herself. But when she heard another she checked over her shoulder as fast as she could, and though she saw no one, she walked faster - another - she clutched her jacket tight…

And a grunt echoed out of the nearby alley, with a splash and a hollow thud.

Joanna jerked back with surprise, but… still she saw nothing. No rats. No men. Griff had gone back into his shop and shut the door.

So she looked left - and right - and up to the rooftops. A figure in a whaling suit lurked on the balcony above, and gave her a wordless salute before - in the blink of an eye - they disappeared.

 

* * *

 

When Joanna crept back into the Cat, chaos hit her like a brick in the face.

Half the staff had crowded into the service stairwell, pushing and trying to climb over each other and standing on their tiptoes to see. Someone stumbled. Someone jostled an end table, and somebody else hollered, _stop!_ The ones with the good sense to stay still huddled on the landings in tight groups, holding blankets and skirts and stockings and towels over themselves, and their chatter rose to a fever pitch as Joanna elbowed her way up.

“What’s going on?!”

Ten frantic answers.

Joanna charged past Prudence’s office. “One at a time!”

“They…” one stammered - “they just came, and…”

“Who?!” Joanna yelled. “I leave this place for _thirty minutes_ and this is what I get?!”

“Jo, you’d better come see this. A bunch of strange men got upstairs.” Betty caught up with Joanna on her way around the next landing. “They’ve got a little girl with them. They won’t let any of us into the hall…”

“Strange men-I-how?!” Joanna asked. “I mean, clients? Are they angry? What?!”

And over the clamor a young, terrified voice shrieked,

_“Help!”_

Joanna dashed the last stretch into the dormitory hall, and sure enough, a man a full head taller than her blocked her way. Betty hid behind Joanna’s back, but Joanna marched right up to where he stood - and the minute she got a look at him she recognized the gas mask and the hooded coat.

“All right.” Joanna stood her ground. “You tell me what’s going on in here, _right now!”_

Little shoes kicked the baseboard in the second room from them. _“Let me out!”_

“Jo, it’s no use. They won’t talk to us.” Betty tried to shepherd her away. “They just…”

“I know who he works for. Now answer me, dammit. _What’s_ going _on?”_

“Master has provided instructions,” the Whaler hissed -

“I don’t give a damn!” Joanna jabbed her finger into the belt buckle on his chest. “This is m- _our_ establishment, and you have no power here - and if you don’t release that girl and leave, I’m going to get the City Watch…”

And before she could finish, the voice chimed in again, frantic and shrill -

“ _When I become empress, you’re all going to be sorry!”_

The stairwell fell into a puzzled silence, and Joanna went deathly white. She backed away from the Whaler, one step, then two…

“What?” One of the courtesans frowned. “What did she say?”

Joanna mouthed a volley of noiseless, senseless words. Her fists balled and her ears flushed and she turned and stormed through the hall, and as she threw her jacket off her shoulders -

“Oh, I’m going to _kill that man!”_

 

* * *

 

“Her _daughter?!”_

Daud’s knees and the toes of his boots chafed against the Scarlet Room rug, and he growled and gnashed as Joanna yanked at the hair on his crown.

“You kidnapped Jessamine’s _daughter,_ and you bring her to hide in a _brothel?!”_

Daud winced. “Bath house…”

“You know damn well what this place is!” Joanna gave him another good tug on his scalp. “It wasn’t enough to kill her, was it? Now you’ve got to put her child in danger, too?!” She bumped him backward into the foot of her bed. “And what about us? The future empress, locked up here? _That’s_ not suspicious at all!”

“No one’s going to find her…”

“Oh. Yes. Good. Like that makes it all right!” Joanna kept pulling and pulling and railing away. “I don’t care if you have an _airtight_ excuse for dumping her in our lap like this…”

“It wasn’t my idea!”

Joanna loosened her grip, and Daud hit the side of her covers with a _whump._

“What?!”

“Take it up with Hiram Burrows if you want someone to scold.” Daud huffed and planted his arm on top of the mattress to brace himself. “He’s the one who paid me to do all this in the first place.”

Joanna wrinkled her nose. “Hiram Burrows? The Lord Regent?”

“You think it’s a coincidence he stepped up before the empress’ body was even cold?” Daud loosened his collar and tried to collect himself. “Or that Emily needed to disappear? He staged a coup right under Dunwall’s nose.”

“That still doesn’t excuse you bringing Emily to the Cat.”

“I can think of a lot worse places to hide a little girl.” Daud patted down his brow. “The entire Flooded District, for one.”

“Says the one who doesn’t work here.”

Joanna turned around and wrung out her wrist as she began to walk away. Daud rested the back of his head against the duvet, his cheeks flushed and his eyes glazed-over and his breath still heavy in his lungs.

“Joanna…” he awkwardly cleared his throat - “I don’t mean to be untoward, but… could you pull my hair again?”

Joanna glanced behind herself and saw the expression on his face - before she looked below the belt, and recoiled and flounced away.

_“Ugh!”_

But before Daud could answer, an insistent knock rattled the door.

_“Joanna?”_

Joanna groaned.

“Yes, Prudence?”

_“Are you in session right now?”_

“Um…” Joanna eyed Daud on the rug - “I’ve got kind of a… situation here…”

_“Yes or no?”_

“Not really, no.”

_“Well, then, come out. We need to talk.”_

 

* * *

 

“Are you aware that the future empress is in our dormitory?” Joanna asked.

“I am.”

Prudence flitted through the Jade Room by the latticed windows and out through the door, past another one of Sokolov’s awful statues and the table crowded with fruit and drinks - and Joanna followed not far behind, arguing with her in a livid hush.

“You know she’s probably been kidnapped?”

“Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Really?” Joanna stomped by the circular staircase and into the service stairwell. “That’s how it is? ‘Don’t jump to conclusions?’”

 _“Joanna._ I didn’t know you had a maternal bone in you.”

“I don’t!” Joanna spat. “This is about common decency!”

Prudence opened her door and pulled out the flyer waiting in her mailbox, and when she saw that it read _Whale Oil Tax,_ she flung it to the ground.

“Lady Emily Kaldwin, here, under house arrest?” Joanna picked the flyer up and stuffed it back in. “Where the Watch could raid us any time and think we’re the ones who kidnapped her?” She dragged the door shut behind herself. “Or worse? Because it’s a brothel and she’s, I don’t know, _ten years old?”_

“Emily is under the care of Morgan and Custis Pendleton.” Prudence bent over the cabinet behind her desk and opened it with a rusty creak. “Lord Regent’s orders. She’ll have to stay until the twins take her somewhere else.”

“And you’re _fine_ with this? What are the girls supposed to do?!”

“I don’t know.” Prudence pulled out a bottle of white wine and poured it into a stained teacup. “Make sure she doesn’t starve to death, or something. I don’t care.”

Joanna pointed to the cup. “And don’t you think it’s a little early for that?”

“Don’t you think that’s none of your business?”

Joanna grit her teeth.

“The Pendletons are important clients.” Prudence took a defiant sip. “They’re regular, and at least Morgan doesn’t leave marks on the girls. I’m not giving up their business just because your morals are in a snit.”

“Have you ever said ‘no’ to a man in your life?”

“And look at how well it’s worked out for me.”

Joanna pinched her nose to avoid saying anything she might regret.

“Anyway. That’s not what I called you in to talk about.” Prudence took the teacup and set it down on the table under the window. “Dr. Galvani was here this morning. He confirmed two more cases of plague.”

“Wait. Two?”

Prudence came back to her desk and leafed through her enormous logbook. “Now, one looks like coincidence, but three looks like carelessness, and as much as it pains me to think about the _months_ of earnings lost…”

Joanna finished for her. “We have to close.”

“The last thing I want is the reputation that my girls spread disease.” Prudence closed the book. “We’ll be open ‘til curfew Friday night. Then we’ll have to clean the place tip to toe.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’m… not really sure how long it’s going to take.”

Joanna studied her shoes.

“We’ll have to call a sanitation inspector when we’re done…” Prudence mourned - “oh, it’s going to be a mess.”

“Well, I’ll… go around and let the girls know, then?”

“Please do.”

Joanna readied herself to leave, and Prudence finished off her wine…

“Oh.” She fondled the tail of her fur. “No, wait. I almost forgot.”

Joanna backed away from the door.

“Whenever it is that we reopen, some things are going to change.” Prudence tapped her nails together. “Some things that might end up better for you and your little… deal.”

Joanna scrunched up in disbelief. “Since when are you on my side?”

“Don’t say I never did anything for you.” Prudence went to her locker in a shuffle of pink silk and opened the old doors, and unlocked the lockbox and carefully drew an ivory document folder out. “By order of the Lord Regent, co-signed by the head of the City Watch…” she set the folder down on her desk and popped up the Dunwall Tower seal - “the Golden Cat is now a ‘designated legally-neutral establishment.’ Look. See?” She flipped it around. “There’s his signature. In nice blue ink.”

Joanna peered closer. Sure enough, the imperial watermark, and Hiram Burrows’ signature.

“That’s…”

“No searches, no seizures - no questions asked about our guests.” Prudence spread her fingers out over the milk-white paper. “If a man down in our steam room is a child-killer, we - don’t - know.”

“And if we let them keep coming back… we’re not harboring a fugitive.”

“That’s right.” Prudence moved the paper aside and pulled out another just like it. “And because the Lord Regent thinks of everything, he made a spare I’m entrusting to you.” She handed it over. “Keep this in the Scarlet Room. Somewhere safe. Just… to be sure.”

Joanna pored over it one more time. Statutes, and citations of old court cases that she wished she understood… and another signature, _Hiram Burrows,_ all the blue-ink letters evenly-spaced.

“This isn’t about my deal.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not.” Joanna fixated on the dark red seal. “‘No searches?’ ‘No questions asked?’” She curled her lip. “I think you know who kidnapped Emily. You know they come here all the time. And I think if your need to make rich men happy ever blows up in your face, you want to be able to wash your hands and say it was just business.”

“Is that so?”

Joanna clammed up.

“What was it you said once about being on good terms with dangerous men?”

Joanna shook her head. “You’ve taken it too far.”

“I’ve done the same thing you did.” Prudence hardened. “I joined the winning side.”

Prudence shoved the copy into Joanna’s grasp so hard it paper-cut Joanna’s thumb.

“This is bigger than the Cat, Joanna. And it’s much bigger than you and me.” Prudence’s jowls deepened with discontent. “Now, take the paperwork. And shut up. _And do your job.”_


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for discussion of reproductive issues.

 

 

* * *

 

Months later the sounds of the Cat’s reopening lit up the Dunwall night, into the courtyard and down the street and all the way out to Holger Square.

Nobles and officers crowded the parlor and lingered in the shadows on the stairs. Audiographs filled the rooms with music. Laughter ricocheted through the halls. Thick smoke clouds hung over the balconies as men puffed on their pipes and cigars, and loosened their collars and argued about everything under the sun - the whale oil tax, the Lord Regent, Parliament, the price of tea.

Three of the newly-rich gambled in one of the private nooks, the lamplight glinting off their gold belt buckles and gold watch chains. Some of the guests had indulged so much that they had already slipped off to sleep, and Beatrice stalled in the corner beside one and shook him by the shoulders as hard as she could.

“Come on… wake up…”

And through the crowd roamed Prudence, her fur fluffed, her pants pressed, greeting her guests with newfound zeal as she smoked to hide her nerves.

Beatrice shook her client again. “You have to get back to your post…”

Until a man in a blue coat and frilly cuffs strolled in from behind a screen.

“Lord Ramsey!” Prudence exclaimed. “Lord Ramsey, welcome! Welcome!” She threw her arms out toward him. “I was hoping you’d get my letter, it’s so good you could come…”

“Always a pleasure, Prudence.” Ramsey let her hover. “Glad to see the plague didn’t kill this place.”

“Oh, never, _never._ Dunwall sinks, but the Golden Cat _survives.”_ Prudence drew smoke trails in the air with her excited gestures. “How have you been, my dear? We’ve been so yearning to see you.”

“Enh.” Ramsey snapped his fingers to summon a girl over. “Lord Shaw thinks I owe him money. Gambling debt, or some tripe like that.” He pointed to a snifter on the table when she arrived, and she poured him a drink. “He’ll be at the next Boyle party. I’m sure he’ll make an ass of himself about it.”

“The Boyles are having another party?”

“And everyone’s invited.” Ramsey took a sip. “Even that old goat, the… art dealer, Bunting. Say, is he here tonight?”

“Oh, he’s around somewhere. Never mind him. He won’t trouble you.” Prudence left a trailing smoke cloud behind herself. “He’d hardly be the best gossip to come out of Boyle Mansion, besides.”

“That so?”

“Well, you know the story about the Boyle sisters.”

“I don’t know. Which one?”

“So Esma Boyle lost her maidenhood to that Serkonan ambassador.” Prudence beckoned for him to walk in the other direction with her. “Remember him? That _hideously_ hairy man?”

Ramsey chuckled. “That would explain a lot.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Prudence patted him on the back. “Anyway. The story goes that Esma leads him up to her room, and he takes off his shirt. And the sight of it gives her _such_ a fright, she rushes back downstairs - and Waverly was married by then, you know, so she had experience…” she winked - “and she says, ‘Waverly, my dear sister, he has a hairy chest!”

Ramsey leered at one of the girls on his way around the parlor.

“And Waverly says, ‘Why, that’s normal, dear, go back upstairs.’ So she does what her sister says, and the ambassador takes off his pants…” Prudence took a quick drag - “And down she rushes again. ‘Waverly, sister, he has hairy legs!’”

“That’s normal, isn’t it?”

“That’s what she says. So Esma goes back upstairs.” Prudence mimed walking with the two fingers not holding her cigarette. “The ambassador’s good and impatient now, so he takes off his socks, and Outsider’s blood…” she clapped - “he’s only got three toes on his left foot. So down she comes. ‘Waverly, sister! He has a foot and a half!’” She smirked. “And Waverly says, ‘Stay down here. I’m going up to see for myself.’”

Ramsey cackled and spilled some of his drink over the side of his coupe. Prudence led him down through the parlor floor and over to more refreshments, past the shy courtesan still plucking out her repetitive song on the harp.

“She’s awfully good,” one man said. “You think she’s classically-trained?”

“In a place like this?” His friend answered. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Now, if Prudence would throw Lord Ramsey out…” Bunting complained across the room - “This party would be perfect.”

Betty plucked a grape off the bunch on the table. “What’s the matter, are you jealous?”

Bunting sniffed. “Of what?”

“I wouldn’t worry. He’s nothing special.” Joanna dismissed it with a wave. “She’s just trying to get him to spend more next time.”

“Is she like that with everyone?”

“Oh, yes. And worse. You should see her around Piero Joplin.” Joanna bugged her eyes for effect. “It’s this horrid fawning, and the worst thing about it is he does it back to her.” She raised her drink to her mouth, but didn’t take a sip. “But I understand. Once you’ve got enough drinks in you, her fur _does_ start to look like Sokolov.”

 _“Hah!”_ Bunting chortled. “You girls are too much. Honestly, I don’t know why I ever leave.” He sloshed his half-finished scotch. “I could run my business right out of your parlor. I see half my clients in here anyway.”

Joanna simpered. “Well, a little plague is a great motivator.”

But before she could hear Bunting’s response, someone’s small finger tapped her on her shoulder blade.

“Jo?” Portia’s voice. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

Joanna hesitated. “Um…”

“Just for a minute.” Portia gave Bunting an apologetic shrug. “Somewhere else?”

 

* * *

 

Joanna ushered Portia into the empty Jade Room, and the noise and music faded behind them into a muted hum.

“All right. What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry to pull you away like that. It’s just I don’t feel very well.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Well… sort of all the time lately.” Portia ducked behind the screen and took a seat on the curved couch. “It’s this kind of ‘not feeling well’ I’ve never felt before.”

“I hate to ask, but… do you think it’s plague?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I thought I’d better get you.” Portia groped at the front of her own camisole. “My chest is really sensitive, and… at the end of the day I’m so worn out.” She pulled the neckline up to better cover herself. “I don’t even feel like eating. I just want to go to bed.”

Joanna sat beside her. “Anything else?”

“I’ve been kind of warm… but not feverish. I mean, plague patients have a fever, right?”

A shadow passed over Joanna’s face.

“When’d you have your last monthly course?”

“I had a little bleeding earlier this month.”

Joanna frowned. “How much is ‘a little?’”

Portia swallowed hard. “Just some spots…”

A drunk man laughed out in the hallway… and Joanna gave Portia a shrug of her eyebrows.

“You know what I’m going to tell you.”

Portia drew a short breath. “Wait. What?”

“I haven’t examined you. But you’re too regular.”

“You mean…?”

“I know what I’m going to find.”

Portia’s expression clouded with one feeling after the next, until they settled into something between startled and overwhelmed.

“Oh.”

Joanna let out a worried sigh - and shifted in her seat.

“I know this is foolish before I ask it, but do you have _any_ idea who the father is?”

“There’s a young Watch guard named Daniel. He used to always ask for me.” Portia smiled a little and gazed down at her abdomen. “When we were closed, I’d sneak him in, and we’d… go to the private steam rooms. You know. Somewhere quiet, where nobody would bother us.” Her ankles crossed and uncrossed, and her ears turned as pink as her cincher and skirt. “I know I shouldn’t have, but he really likes me. He always leaves me a nice tip.”

Joanna squashed the first thought that came to her mind.

“Well… listen. Everything’s going to be all right.” She reached out and ran her hand up and down Portia’s upper arm. “Just let me know when you can take some time off, and I’ll take care of everything.”

“No.”

Joanna balked. “But I thought…”

_“No.”_

Joanna couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Daniel… is a nice young man,” Portia began. “And he means well.”

Joanna’s mouth twisted. “Oh no.”

Portia sat up straight. “I’m serious.”

“You let him kiss you, don’t you?”

“Well, I- ”

Joanna held her temples. _“Shit.”_

“Can’t you see, Jo? This is my chance!” Portia’s hands fidgeted in her lap. “I mean, he doesn’t know about this, of course, but he’s been talking about a flat. You know, as soon as he gets some money, and another rank or two in the Watch.” The further she went on the more she worked herself up. “I know he wants to ask me to marry him, and now we can have this baby, too.”

“Outsider’s blood…”

“And I’m gonna quit, and never look back…”

“That’s not how this business…”

“And have a _good_ little life. Far from here.”

“Until what?”

“Wh- I…” Portia stuttered - “until nothing.”

“Until what, until you get older? Until he sees you without makeup on?” Joanna asked and asked her, her voice rising with each one. “Do you know how hard having a baby is?”

“I…”

“You think these men can _handle_ that?” Joanna had to pause to catch her breath. “And then you find him back in here with a girl the age that you are now, because… what? What will he tell you? He thinks you're not _tight_ anymore?”

“Jo…”

“I’m just trying to protect you!” The blood rose in Joanna’s cheeks. “Because it’s going to happen, believe me! It’s just a matter of when.”

Glass broke on the other side of the wall. Portia recoiled… and slowly shook her head.

“I can’t believe it.”

Joanna fumed.

“You don’t want me to be happy,” Portia observed in quiet awe. “Because…” she wrestled with it, then forced it out - “you just hate men!”

Joanna stood up and threw down a damning finger inches from Portia's nose. “You’ve got eleven more years to get spat on before you talk to me about ‘men.’”

“You don’t wanna admit there’s a man out there who might actually feel true love.” Portia stood up after her, shaking at the wrists and knees. “‘Cause then you’d be wrong. And you think ‘cause you’re older, you always have to know more than me.”

Joanna started to walk away. “I’m not having this conversation with you…”

“Well, you don’t! I love Daniel! And I know he loves me!” Portia tried her level best to get the last word. “And maybe men wouldn’t treat you so bad if they couldn’t tell you hated them.”

And on _hated_ Joanna wheeled around with her chin high and her shoulders back, her eyes calmly, deadly cold and her voice poison-flat.

“Congratulations.”

Portia backed up against the couch cushions, half-angry, but now half-scared.

“You’re in the boys’ club,” Joanna said. “How does it feel?”

Portia said nothing.

“Because they still don’t respect you.”

In one swift gesture Joanna strode across the room, over the rug and past the end table and the lattices and the portrait on the wall. She grabbed the balcony door handle and wrenched it open on her way out - and when she made it outside, she lost her composure, and clawed her fingers into her hair.


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for reproductive issues and sadomasochistic themes.

 

 

* * *

 

Daud tapped his foot and clicked his teeth like a restless river krust, and trudged upstairs and downstairs and turned his curtained office upside down.

Not in his desk. Not in his locker. Not by the audiograph machine.

He kept looking. Not on his bookshelf. Not under his unmade bed. Things he sorted six months ago had disappeared in a sea of clutter and rats - a place for everything, he thought, but only if you could _remember_ its place - as he dug under shoeboxes and books and ledgers and still came up with nothing.

 _Outsider’s eyes._ He kneaded his temples. He just wanted to _groom_ himself.

So he hand-combed his hair down and moved onto the next corner of the mess. Not by the washbowl. Not next to his journal. Not- no, he’d already looked under the bed. Not in the safe-deposit cabinet, because why _would_ he leave it there, and not on his bookshelf and not in any one of the innumerable dark corners gathering filth, or the… the…

 _Wait a minute,_ he realized. His trunk.

He dropped to one knee at the foot of his bed and undid the time-worn latches, one after the other, and pushed open the heavy lid. And sure enough, there lay his old mirror and his long wooden shaving box - on top of a wrinkled shirt and two mismatched pairs of gloves.

So he set the box and mirror down on a crate by the window, and with a great heave from his shoulders he tore open the heavy drape. He coughed at the dust - grimaced at the light - elbow-polished the mirror and held it up - and clapped his hand to his cheek in horror when he saw his reflection staring back. Sunken eyes. Swollen bags. A new crease between his eyebrows. And hollow, purple cheekbones with… how many days of stubble hanging off?

 

* * *

 

So he sank down onto his mattress and an ache spread through his bones, and he hitched the strop to the end of his headboard and pulled it tight in his tired grip.

He took the razor by its shank and held it blade-out on the far end, and dragged it toward himself - carefully - all the way up to the top. His wrist trembled and he barely missed his own knuckles on the first swipe, but he breathed in deep - and grounded himself - and flipped the razor over and dragged it back down.

And he fell into a rhythm of long, slow passes, and listened to the soft stroking sound. Up toward his chest. _Swish-h-h._ Down to the bedpost. _Swish-h-h._

 

* * *

 

Boiled water dripped from the pitcher into the white washbowl, and Daud clattered his brush in its mug and lathered out to his ears.

A gull cried outside from the tip of the crown of Jessamine’s stone head, tall and vigilant up the side of the building, under Daud’s window. _The irony of the universe,_ he told himself. Well, at least she faced away from his bed. He set the mug aside and reached over and tugged up the loosening skin on his cheek, and tucked his thumb on the shank and his pinky on the handle and brought the sharp edge toward his face…

And he hesitated.

He wet his lip - and let the razor hover - and tilted the blade in a little more. But he sighed with relief when he felt the familiar scrape, and it all came back to him as he shaved down his cheek and under his jaw.

Maybe he would go to the Cat, he thought. Maybe. Joanna would want him to look presentable. Or maybe as soon as he finished he would fall back into bed, and sleep for another four hours when he had meant to sleep for one. He checked his reflection, then switched the razor to his other hand, and shaved his left cheek - his left jaw - down his upper lip - the sides of his mouth.

In the corner of his mind he heard a suspicious creak, coming from somewhere in the abandoned apartment buildings across the street. The wood and drywall heaved against a frame too weak to support it anymore, and amid the rubble on the top floor, something began to shift…

Daud ignored it. He took another pass down his chin, then up to get the rest…

The stone trim crumbled, and sent a shower of dust into the flood below…

Down his neck, over the vulnerable swell of his windpipe…

And in a sudden, deafening deluge, the rubble crashed through the floorboards.

Daud flinched. His razor jumped. The mirror jostled on the top of the crate. A red drop splashed into the bowl and dissolved in the slush of water and foam - and he swore under his breath as a thread of blood ran down his throat.

 

* * *

 

_Crack!_

“Harder!”

_Crack!_

_“Agh!”_

Daud bit down hard and sweated and cringed as he knelt at the foot of Joanna’s couch, his wrists tied in front with red silk rope and welts searing on his bare back. Joanna stood over him with her legs apart and a riding crop in hand, and every time Daud squirmed she brought it down with a loud -

_Crack!_

“Why am I doing this to you, Daud?”

Daud took a ragged breath. “Because…”

“Because why?”

“I deserve it…”

“And why do you deserve it this time?”

Daud hesitated a moment too long, because when he opened his mouth to respond to her -

_Crack!_

“Answer me!”

“Because I…” Daud wheezed - “I killed the empress for coin…”

“And what does that make you?”

“An empress-killer…”

“You’re damn right it does!”

And with the next _crack!_ Daud crumpled into the seat of her couch, with his cheek squished into the cushion as he let out a husky groan.

“Get up!” Joanna barked. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Daud flopped his arms onto the cushion beside him and tried to push himself off, and when he struggled, Joanna grabbed his hair and yanked him the rest of the way up.

“I didn’t even need the money…” He started to babble - “I j-just didn’t say no…”

“And why did you do that?”

“Because I have no morals…”

“That’s not even _half_ of it!” Joanna dragged him up to eye level and yelled right in his face. “Did it feel good to get paid for it?”

“No…”

“Do you pay _me_ with that money?”

Daud grimaced. “No…”

“Why not?!” Joanna tightened her grip. “Is it _blood_ money? Is it too _dirty_ for you?”

Daud’s eyes grew bleary, and said nothing, and Joanna raised her hand to strike…

“Answer…”

But she stopped when she noticed the nick on his throat.

“Wait a minute. Did you shave for me?”

“Yes,” Daud mumbled…

_Smack!_

“Well, do it right next time!”

Daud grunted in pain as a pink handprint rose on the side of his face.

Joanna shrank away a little and broke character. “Too hard?”

Daud laughed a hoarse, lustful laugh. “Not hard enough.”

Joanna gave him a confused look…

“You’ll have to hit harder than that if you want to hurt me with hands like yours.”

“I resent that remark.” Joanna flounced down onto the couch. “Now take my shoes off. My feet are sore.”

“Joanna, you tied my hands.”

“You’re the Knife of Dunwall. Figure it out.”

Daud glared at her - but wrestled her ankle in between the rope. He fumbled with the first button, his fingers shaking and clammy and hot, and Joanna sipped at the teacup that she’d left on the floor.

“Daud?”

“Hnh?”

“Be honest. Are you getting anything from this?”

Daud frowned. “What?”

“I mean, do think this is really helping you work out your guilt?”

Daud picked the next button out of its hole. “It does. For now.”

Joanna spoke with her mouth still in the teacup. “Well, as long as you’re happy, I guess…”

But before Daud could answer, once again, there came a knock on Joanna’s door.

 

* * *

 

“Are you going to find a reason to interrupt me every time you hear Daud in there?”

“‘Hit me,’ the masochist said,” Prudence joked to herself. “So the sadist said, ‘no.’”

“Very funny.” Joanna brushed a bunch of hydrangeas from the planter out of her face. “Now what do you want?”

“You know, for a minute there, I thought things were going well?” Prudence passed through the shadows of the screen and the grillwork and the creeping vines. “We’re open. We passed the sanitation test. Most of our regulars are back. It’s not quite like before the plague, but adjusted for disaster, we’re doing fine.” She strolled out to the wide balcony next to the Gold Room. “In a city like Dunwall I have to worry that it’s too good to be true, and sure enough…”

“Prudence, get to the point…”

And Prudence spun around and spat,

“Portia is _pregnant?”_

Joanna blinked, stunned in the moment by the loud noise inches from her face.

Prudence’s rings clanged as she lay her arm over the railing and dropped her voice.

“How far is she?”

“I don’t know, maybe…” Joanna stammered - “six… six weeks.”

“Oh.” Prudence tapped her ash into the river. “Good. You’ve still got plenty of time.”

“Um, about that…”

“What’s the matter? Are you out of herbs?”

“She’s already turned me down.”

Prudence glowered up at her under sky-high eyebrows.

“I beg your pardon?”

“She said she wants to keep it.” Joanna held onto the railing at the other end. “One of our younger clients is the father. Portia thinks she’s going to marry him.”

Prudence took a long, displeased drag, and she kept staring Joanna down - like holding a magnifying glass to paper to see when it would start to burn.

And Joanna finally turned away.

“I knew you weren’t going to like this.”

“She’s young enough that I’ve still been selling her as a virgin sometimes.” Prudence squinted out at the flock of birds over the water’s edge. “Now how do you think that’s going to work?”

“Why am I not surprised that that’s what you’re worried about?”

“All picked over for the plague and the fetishists, Outsider’s blood.” Prudence blew a disdainful cloud of smoke. “How to turn an asset into a liability in two easy steps…”

“You know, I’d tell you to stop talking about the girls like they’re damaged goods,” Joanna said, “but if I have to have that conversation one more time, I’m going to scream…”

“Well, it’s easy for you. I’m the one who has to actually keep the lights on…”

“Listen. You’re not happy, I’m not happy! But Portia’s made up her mind.” Joanna flung her palms up in exasperated surrender. “I told her it wasn’t a good idea, I gave her the choice, she got angry, it’s done. I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Joanna, you bleeding heart, she’s a _courtesan.”_ Prudence snuffed out her cigarette. “She does things she doesn’t want to do every day of her miserable life.”

Joanna took a deep breath through her nose to keep her temper down. Prudence flicked the smoldering stub out of her holder and into the river weeds below, and an old, spitting motor hummed as a riverboat sailed up to the dock.

“This business isn’t about what we want,” Prudence said. “It never was.”

 

* * *

 

That night Portia sat by the edge of the Steam Room pond, her hair uncombed and her cincher loosened and her posture tired and small.

The vapors left thick drops on the tiles and the green ceiling light dappled the floor, and she watched the ornamental fish swim lazy circles around her feet. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Something to do and not think about. The pipes rattled once - then twice, in metallic _clinks_ on the walls - and settled down like magic when she gave them a dirty look.

And she listened on and off to the muffled voices behind the door.

_“How do you think you’re going to vote on the upcoming bills?”_

_“Obviously to uphold the embargo and the quarantine in the Flooded District.”_ Loulia and Morgan Pendleton, from the sound of it. _“We don’t know if those plague elixirs will work, and I don’t want to die before I find out. The Lord Regent’s measures are the only thing holding down what’s left of Dunwall.”_

_“Then you must be glad Lord Blackburn’s gone.”_

A pause. _“What do you mean?”_

 _“Well, he would’ve voted against you, wouldn’t he?”_ Another rattle from the pipes. _“The conservatives hold the majority now. You and your brother have a real advantage.”_

_“Are you implying something?”_

_“Oh. Goodness. I’m sorry, no.”_

_Clink. Clink._ The fish kept swimming, and the pipes kept making noise.

But before Portia could tune them all the way out, she heard someone else.

_“Portia?”_

Portia straightened her back. “Huh?”

 _“It’s me, Jo.”_ A high-heeled step echoed off the stairs. _“Are you down there?”_

“What do you think?”

No answer.

“What do you want?” Portia asked.

_“Can I come down? I have something for you.”_

Portia huffed. “All right, fine. But make it quick.”

The heel-clicking continued and Joanna emerged from the dark stairwell, and unbuttoned her boots and left them aside she walked in.

“Are you all right over there?”

“I guess.” Portia pushed her hair out of her face. “Just thought I’d soak my feet.”

“Are you not feeling well?”

“Prudence says I should enjoy them before they get all swollen up.”

“That was rotten of her, and you know it.” Joanna sidestepped a wet spot by the screen. “How much time did she give you?”

“Oh, I’m not fired.” Portia cupped her hands over her knees. “She told me she changed her mind. Says there are nobles who’ll pay double once I get big enough.”

“I wish I could say that didn’t sound like her…”

“Listen, just give me whatever you brought and leave.” Portia didn’t look up. “Don’t pretend you want to talk to me.”

“Well…” Joanna swished past the stone benches - “that’s where you’re wrong.”

“No I’m not.”

“Just look at what I have before you make up your mind.”

Joanna lifted her bustle and sat at Portia’s side, and held out a lacquer snuff box with a gold garden motif. Portia took it - and opened it with her fingernail under the lid - and saw… a set of hand-wrapped tea bags?

“What _are_ these?”

“Raspberry leaf for your morning sickness. Peppermint for your stomachaches.” Joanna pointed to them and named them off one by one. “And this one’s Pandyssian ginger. It should help keep you strong.”

Portia picked the peppermint up and sniffed it, then the raspberry leaf.

“I… think if my mother knew what I’d told you, she’d be ashamed of me.” Joanna bowed her head as she took her garters off her thighs. “Her job was to help people do what they wanted. Not get in their way.” Then one stocking, and the other, and she set them aside - and stuck her legs in beside Portia’s and scared the fish away. “I still believe what I believe. This is going to be terribly hard for you. But… I’ve been letting her memory down. And that’s the last thing I want to do.”

A silence.

“Jo.” Portia put the ginger tea bag back in the box. “You’re gonna be angry, but… I think there’s something you should know.”

Joanna waited for her to go on.

“You gave me that bone charm like Beatrice’s, and I was good about it most of the time…” Portia fumbled with the box lid and set it down in her lap - “but… I know sometimes when Daniel would visit, I didn’t have it on.”

“Well, It’s a thoughtless mistake, but you’d hardly be the only one…”

“No, I…” Portia laced her fingers - “I mean I took it off.”

Joanna waited - and waited - for what Portia said to sink in.

“Portia, I’m trying to be on your side, but… why would you do this _now?”_

Portia tucked her chin and didn't respond.

“Outsider’s blood, there’s a _plague…”_

“I know that.”

“Then…”

“I just wanted what you have.”

Joanna clasped her hand to her chest. “What I… what do _I_ have?”

“That man in the red coat?” Portia gazed up at the water patterns on the ceiling like stars. “That comes all the time and waits at your door and talks to you in the bath?” She faltered. “He treats you like you _matter!_ That’s what _all_ of us want. And I thought maybe…” she faltered  - “maybe Daniel treated me like I mattered too.”

Joanna closed her eyes and sighed from the pit of her soul.

“That man you’re… well, I can’t tell you who he is or what he does.” Joanna stared into the water the way Portia had minutes before. “But you wouldn’t like him if you knew, and I’m not sure you’d think well of me.”

“What?” Portia scrunched up with disbelief. “‘Think well of you?’ What are you talking about?”

“Maybe you have found something in Daniel. Maybe he’s decent. I don’t know.” Joanna took her feet out of the water and lifted herself up off the floor. “But whatever you think that man and I have, it’s not something you want.”

Portia chewed her lip.

“You have to survive in your way.” Joanna turned out of the light. “I have to survive in mine.”

And she bent to pick up her stockings and folded them under her arm, and her toes left soft squelches behind her as she slipped back up the stairs.


	11. Chapter 10

 

 

* * *

 

“Hold _still_ ,” Joanna insisted. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Courtesans trickled in and out of the cramped bathroom aisles, and their heat in numbers lent a pitiful little warmth to the cement floor. One soaped her hair up under the shower. Another shivered and dried off. Another scrubbed at her smeared lipstick and tried to put it back on, and Joanna cut pieces of torn stocking away from the scrape on Violetta’s knee.

“How’m I gonna make any money like this? People think you get the plague from open cuts.”

“Just put your dark stockings on.” Joanna wound her roll of bandages around once, twice, then sheared it off. “You can work in the Gold Room until it heals. Shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

“ _Ugh.”_ Violetta squirmed around on her barstool. “Custis is still asleep in there.”

“Well, in the Steam Room you’d have to take them off, and the Smoking Room’s not good for you.” Joanna pulled the sewing pin out of her mouth and stuck it through the bandage folds. “I’m sorry, dear. Maybe the parlor? I don’t know what else you could do.”

“Hey, Jo,” Betty interrupted. “Is Lady Emily still in her room?”

Joanna cut the length of bandage she needed off the roll. “How should I know?”

“I thought I didn’t see her when I went upstairs just now.” Betty kept talking as she carried a stack of towels toward the laundry closet. “Hope she’s not trying to run again. It’ll be on our heads if she gets away.”

Joanna set the bandage roll aside. “And by ‘ours’ you mean ‘mine.’”

“I’m sorry.” Violetta moped. “It’s my own fault I tripped. You shouldn’t have to look after me.”

“It’s not anybody’s fault. Some things are just accidents.” Joanna handed back Violetta’s shoe. “Just because Custis scolds you doesn’t mean what he says is true.”

“I don’t know.” Violetta shrugged. “Sometimes I wonder if some of it is right.”

“It’s not.” Joanna gave Violetta’s thigh a firm, reassuring pat. “Now go on. I’ve got to get back to work. Come back if that bleeds through.”

 

* * *

 

Joanna shut the personnel-only door and swept up the main staircase, and the leers began to follow her the minute she reached the top.

A gang of factory thugs leaned on the railing and the fireplace and the screen, all sideburns and striped trousers and open collars that hinted at hairy chests. One smacked his lips. One puffed his cigar. One chewed his apple with an open mouth. She held her chin high and her back straight and tried to keep her hem off their muddy toes, and pretended to ignore the whistle as she glided through the door.

In the parlor she spotted an old regular and ducked up the next flight of stairs, up a shooting gallery of one, two, three men staring down her robe. She tugged it up around her neck and forged on by the nook where more card-players had returned, louder and drinking harder and as rough as the men in the hall.

“Hey, sweetie…” one of them snapped his fingers - “sit down and keep us company.”

But she kept walking…

“ _Hey!”_ He shot up from his chair and hollered after her. “Don’t walk away from me!”

“Come on, sit down.” His friend next to him coaxed him back into his seat. “She’s putting on airs. We can’t afford her anyway.”

“Give me five minutes with her, we’d see how much she ‘put on airs…’”

Joanna gulped down the hot frustration in her throat and pressed on - and on - and on - through the forest of vests and plants and hookahs and hungry eyes. A lower guard, _hey, lady, how much?_ \- an officer, _go on, smile -_ a rich man who eyed her ankles, _at least give us a look_ \- and when she made it to her door - unlocked? _Oh, whatever_ \- she slammed it behind them all.

 _Breathe in. Breathe out._ Her bathtub dripped - _plink - plink -_ and she fluffed the dust out of the peonies to calm down.

“Bad afternoon?”

She spun around. Daud lay along the whole length of her couch, the perfect picture of indolence - his head propped on the armrest like a prince and his limp wrist brushing the floor.

So she turned back to the wall and rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore.”

Daud grumbled, “Hello to you too.”

Joanna set the vase down with a _thud._ “Who let you in?”

“I did.”

“And you just…” Joanna drew lines in the air from the door, to him, to the window… “were you…”

A crafty hike of his eyebrows.

Joanna’s arm dropped. “You’re getting too good at this.”

Daud stretched his back and legs out. “You keep a spare key in the potted plant.”

“Well… at least you’re not crawling in through my windows anymore.” Joanna wriggled out of her robe and hung it up on its usual place on the rack. “Anyway, I had other things to do. Violetta slipped on the back stairs. Really bashed up her knee. I had to do something before she bled all over her clothes.”

“Huh.” Daud stroked his chin as he thought out loud. “I always taught my Whalers to mix equal parts powdered crystal and widow’s root.” He crossed his ankles and flexed his toes, and let out a full-mouthed, canine yawn. “Coffee to wash it down. Tastes like death. But it keeps them from bleeding out.”

Joanna swished around to the side of the couch. “And you actually _drank_ it?”

“Never underestimate what a bachelor will drink when he’s hurt.”

“Outsider’s blood.” Joanna held her forehead. “Some days I swear I’m the only thing keeping you alive.”

“Don’t joke. You may be right.”

“Ugh.” Joanna stuck her leg up on the velvet roll and unbuttoned her shoe. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“That bad?”

“Don’t get me started.” Joanna wiggled her falling garter up. “I think half the slaughterhouse moved in today. They’ve turned the place into a meat market.” A little higher… a little more… “If I had a coin for every time I’ve been hooted at, I’d go retire in Serkonos.”

“If you want, I could…”

Joanna glowered. _“No.”_

The garter snapped. Daud sank deeper into the couch stuffing and Joanna whispered a quick _dammit!,_ and as she bent to hold the bare stocking up… she heard his signature craggy groan.

“Daud, _honestly.”_

“I wish you’d bent me over that balcony and slit my throat when you had the chance.” Daud dug his thumbs into his eye bags. “I wouldn’t have this headache.”

“Oh, stop sulking.” Joanna rolled it down to her ankle. “You can’t get anything done if you’re dead.”

“It’s brooding, not sulking.”

“Well, it’s just as infantile.” Joanna gave up and rolled the other down to match. “Are you even paying for anything, or do you just want my company?”

Daud lay the snark on thick. “Your company is always so charming.”

“Don’t look at me!” Joanna protested. “You’re the one who keeps coming back.” She tossed the stockings behind her screen. “‘Slap me, Joanna, tell me what a bad boy I’ve been.’ Six whole months of it.”

“You were closed for some of them.”

“And you’ve been part of the furniture almost every day we weren’t.” Joanna stowed her boots under the feet of the couch. “The Pendletons are still here, you know. I could be making better coin than you.”

Daud eyed her with mild disgust. “If you wanted to let them lick your toes.”

“You worry about your own toes.” Joanna duck-tailed up the back of his hair. “I’ve got a business to run.”

Daud scooted back so the couch pillow propped him up at the neck.

“What if I told you I did have a headache?”

“Sorry, I can’t scold _that_ out of you.”

“Humor an old man and try, will you?”

“Fine. But only if you stop brooding. And calling yourself old.” Joanna planted her hands on her hips. “How old even are you, anyway?”

“42 last month.”

Joanna gasped with soft surprise and clutched her chest. “Oh.”

“What?”

“You look terrible.”

 

* * *

 

“Joanna?”

“Yes?”

“I have a peculiar question for you.”

“Maybe I have a peculiar answer.”

“A peculiar answer might not be wrong.” Daud settled onto the down filling of Joanna’s duvet, stripped to the waist and stretched out across the length of the bed. “Do you remember that name I told you about?”

“What name?”

“Delilah.”

“Oh.” Joanna knelt in front of her oil cabinet and mulled over which scent to use on him. “Delilah. Sure. I haven’t heard about her in a while.”

“I keep trying to forget about it, but who is she? And why should I care?” Daud held his fist to his mouth. “I’ve been losing sleep over it for six months. I can’t seem to let it go.”

“Six months is a long time to lose sleep over that kind of thing.” Joanna took out the jasmine - no, the lavender this time. “I mean, whoever she is, she could be a weeper by now.”

“That’s what I said.” The lines on Daud’s forehead deepened, and he stared at his nails to concentrate. “Then Billie told me she’d heard it, too. Recently. She just couldn’t remember where.”

Joanna stopped with one knee on the bed.

“It’s not a coincidence. It can’t be. The Outsider doesn’t work like that.” Daud flattened himself on the covers as Joanna climbed up and straddled his legs. “I just wish I knew where to start looking.”

Joanna opened the oil bottle. “Well… hmm. Let me think…”

Daud let her think…

“All right.” Joanna oiled up her palms. “Let’s go through this logically. She’s not a courtesan, because I’d know her if she were. She’s probably not big in the underworld, or else _you’d_ know about her already.”

“True.”

“She might be a noble, but you’ve done so many jobs for nobles before…” Joanna set her hands down above Daud’s hips - “I’d think you would have…” she paused, and her eyes widened - “wait.”

Daud tipped his head back to glance at her. “What?”

“I think I do remember something.”

Daud spread his elbows out to give her more room to work. “Go on.”

“This might be a long story, I warn you.”

“I’m listening.”

“So about eight years ago, Sokolov came here to set up shop.” Joanna slathered the oil over the skin on Daud’s back. “I mean, I say that like he doesn’t set up shop here all the time.”

“Does he?”

“Outsider’s eyes, you have no idea. He’s the Cat’s live-in hairy old goat.” On _goat_ Joanna gave Daud’s shoulders a shove to finish him off. “But this time he specifically said he wanted to use the girls for figure drawing, and he brought this… I guess she was his student. A young woman, about my age.”

Daud twitched his nose at the lavender smell.

“We got some costumes out and had some of the girls pose for them, and they spent the whole afternoon like that. Drawing Betty. Drawing me.” Joanna pushed deep into the dimples on Daud’s waist. “I think I still have the sketch somewhere. He’s a pervert, but a talented one.” She worked up his spine, and then around to the start of his ribs. “But I tried to get a look at what the student was working on, and…” she shuddered - “and, see, this is where it gets fuzzy, because it was all those years ago.” She dug the meat of her palms in harder… and harder… “But I could’ve _sworn_ that he called her Delilah…” and she heard a muscle crack. _“Ugh!_ There!”

Daud groaned.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it hurts…”

Joanna gloated. “Atta boy.”

Daud let his head sink back down onto the covers, and took a deep breath to ride the last of the ache out.

“Anything else?”

“I remember her art was kind of creepy, and she was very good at drawing eyes.” Joanna gently massaged the slope where his shoulders met his neck. “But that’s it. I’m sorry. I can’t imagine that’s very helpful to you.”

Daud thought for a long time without saying a word, until…

“Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Anything.” Daud pawed Joanna off of him and rolled over onto his back. “I could find her. I could not. The outcome of things would be the same.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do.” Daud swung his legs over the side of the bed and hunched over his knees. “I know I’ve got a bad end coming. I’m just waiting it out.”

Joanna sat on her heels. “Why?”

“Why not?” Daud rubbed his temple. “I’ve made my bed. I have to lie in it.”

“Except that you keep making it with the same dirty pillows.” Joanna got up and crossed the room to put the oil away. “You know, there are people who’d tell me I brought my life upon myself. Being a courtesan and everything.”

Daud watched her with a suspicious squint.

“The Overseers are the worst about it. They tell us we always get what we deserve.” Joanna opened the cabinet and stashed the bottle in its proper place. “Like there’s never any time to stop, or… think, or turn around.”

Daud left his temple alone. “You believe that?”

“Of course I do.” Joanna shut the cabinet door. “I’m in the business of changing fate.”

“It’s one thing to talk about it,” Daud said. “It’s another to do it. Between the two of us, I’m… not sure if I have a taste for killing anymore.”

“Then don’t.”

Daud blinked.

“What?”

“You heard me. I said don’t.”

“But what if this Delilah…”

“You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

Daud didn’t respond. His chin fell back into the cradle of his hand, and a shadowy pall came over him of deep, unsettled thought.

“Don’t you see?” Joanna came over to him and took both his shoulders in both her hands. “Your past may catch up with you. That doesn’t mean you can’t make it run.”

But before Daud could answer, an alarm blared through the room.

Joanna froze. She looked to Daud - _what? -_ and Daud looked back - _I don’t know!_ The alarm boomed one more time from the loudspeakers on every block - and a third time, foghorn-deep, like the death groan of a monstrous whale.

 _Attention Dunwall citizens!_ The propaganda officer’s voice. _Attention Dunwall citizens! -_ and then something else they couldn’t understand.

Joanna pulled her hands off Daud’s shoulders and leaped across the room, and threw open the balcony doors and burst out into the sun. The alarm shook the Cat’s iron grillwork and echoed off the stone, down the street to the Distillery District and the marble Abbey walls, across the river and into the sewers as the propaganda officer said again -

_Attention Dunwall citizens! Attention Dunwall citizens! The assassin Corvo Attano has escaped from Coldridge Prison!_


	12. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for disturbing images.

 

 

* * *

 

_Stroke._

Daud leaped from a stone staircase onto the ledge of a steep roof.

_Stroke._

He vaulted over the parapet and landed soft on his feet.

 _Stroke._ A Whaler appeared beside him. _Stroke._ Another, then three, then gone. He felt nothing. He smelled nothing. The air burbled like he had water in his ears. He moved on the wind like he had no shoes - no shadow - no legs - just arms that braced him against the ivy and fingers that kept perfect time, tapping as he watched Jessamine and her daughter and bodyguard in the gazebo shade.

 _Tap._ His Whalers ambushed them. _Tap._ The bodyguard struck back. _Tap, tap,_ they swung, they parried, and panicked voices rose in the courtyard. The bodyguard brandished his pistol and fired and Daud gestured to Billie by his side - a quick side-swipe of his fingers to tell her, _go ahead of me._

And with a pull of his fist and one last _stroke_ he sailed down onto the marble floor.

He landed hard and a cold, hard shock shot up to his hips, and suddenly he could feel his legs again, too much, too painful, all at once. Emily yelped. Jessamine threw herself in her daughter’s way. When Daud shoved her aside, Billie swooped in and snatched Emily up, and Jessamine swiped and slapped to fend him off in vain - he drew his sword - _no!_ she hollered - _no!_ But no one heard her and no one hollered back and no one came to help, and Daud held her down by her spindly neck and plunged his sword into her fragile chest.

Jessamine sputtered - and coughed - but Daud pressed deeper on the hilt - until with a sickening squish the blade ran through the other side. He tried to pull back, but his hand went numb, and tingled like it had fallen asleep - and Jessamine flailed up and clawed at his sleeve with…

Red nails?

Daud blinked. Time seemed to flow slower, until it came to a complete stop…

And when Daud looked up he saw Joanna in Jessamine’s clothes, shaking him, groaning like a weeper, her eyes hollow and leaking blood.

Daud tried to cry out, but his voice caught in his throat. He tried to run, but the soles of his boots stuck to the floor. Joanna seized him by the shoulders and let out an unearthly shriek, and from her mouth poured thick black gut blood and bile and brine and mud and rot, and knocked-out teeth and the bones of hagfish and- and-

He snapped awake.

Wood creaked in the rafters above him. The morning breeze blew cold on his cheek. Daud lay very, very still, and looked left, then right, then up and down - until the wall in front of him seemed real and he could feel the sheets against his toes.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Daud thought he had found his grip on reality again, he heaved himself up and fumbled with the clothes that lay on the edge of the bed.

Yesterday’s? Today’s? His head pounded. He didn’t know. He smelled the collar of his shirt, and when he didn’t cringe, he threw it on. _Good enough._ When the rest of the world came into focus he slowly, gingerly got to his feet… and a wave of nausea almost put him back down.

 _Breathe in,_ Daud told himself. _Breathe out._ His stomach calmed… he dug his knuckles into the bags under his eyes… and he set off across the landing and down the flight of stairs.

Down one he went. Down another. He tried not to trip on his own heels. And as he reached the foot of the staircase he slipped on the broken banister, and he hissed with pain as the metal end sliced straight across his palm.

 

* * *

 

So with slow, plodding footsteps, Daud dragged himself down the gray dawn-lit hall.

His ears rang. The last of the damp night sweat chilled his brow. He kept his gaze low and his shoulders bent and he squeezed his palm to stanch the cut, and Billie and Thomas peeked over their shoulders at him with concern as he passed.

“Daud?” Billie asked. “You’re already awake?”

“Fix that damn banister,” he grumbled back.

“Daud, are you…” Thomas took a step after him - “are you feeling all right?”

Daud gave him a guttural noise for an answer, so Billie called again,

_“Daud?”_

“I said ‘m _fine,”_ he insisted, and rounded the corner before they could keep bothering him.

When Daud finally reached the washroom he heaved the splintering door closed, and hunched down in front of the mirror and twisted the handle on the dirty white sink. The pipes gurgled with air and nothing came out, so he twisted it one, then two times more - and the water ran clear over his bloody hand and flowed red down the drain.

 

* * *

 

“Are you feeling any better now?”

“Why?”

“Heard you had a rough morning.”

The early afternoon Whaler patrol paced the rickety scaffolds outside, pushing their gas masks up to smoke and peering down at the floating trash. Daud waited in the packed clerk room as one of his poisoners searched the pouches on his chest, under the patchwork light thrown on the floor from the leaded-glass window panes.

“Don’t worry about it.” Daud brushed it off. “I’m fine.”

“Well, the smugglers dropped off a new shipment. It’s waiting upstairs for you to inspect.” The poisoner rifled through his inside pockets until he found a paper in the one on his hip, and unfolded it and handed it over for Daud to read. “Don’t thank me yet, though. I think they’ve been trying to cheat us on the number of sleep darts.”

“They’ve been cheating us on sleep darts for months,” Daud remarked, as he rubbed his chin. “Looks like they’re still lying about it in their bookkeeping, too.” He skimmed the scribbled numbers on the makeshift invoice one more time, then gave it back. “Take this to Thomas. He’ll think of something to do with it.”

The poisoner stuffed it back in the pocket it came from. “Of course.”

He disappeared into the crowd of boots and belts and dark coats, an inch here or a pound there the only way to tell them apart. Daud tickled idly behind his ear and tried to regain himself, still slow and tired and disoriented and a little sore…

Until he overheard two of his junior scouts murmuring behind a glass.

“Is it just me, or has Daud been distracted lately?”

“He killed the empress, remember? He’s got a lot on his mind.”

“That’s not what I mean,” the first insisted. “He’s always slipping out. He never says where he’s going, but I think he’s headed to the Cat.”

Daud ducked into one of the cubicles to give himself an excuse to hang around.

“Come on. He doesn’t care about that sort of thing.”

“I’m serious.” The first one crossed his arms. “Sometimes when he comes back I smell jasmine on his clothes. And then there’s the patrol boys that keep getting sent to Bottle Street.” He tried to add it up. “What do you think they’re out there for? We haven’t had a target there since Forsyte.”

And Daud decided to cut in. “Why don’t you go next time and find out?”

“Um.” They cleared their throats and fidgeted on their feet. “Daud. Sorry.”

Daud sized them up and nodded to the first one. “You’re the builder’s son, right?”

“That’s me.”

Daud gestured for him to come out of the cubicle bay.

“When’s that rubble in my hall getting cleared out? I’m sick of looking at it.”

“It’ll have to keep waiting. I’m sorry.” The scout sort of kept up with Daud’s pace. “There’s dry rot on the other side and the floor’s coming up everywhere, and the rain’s still doing water damage outside the practice room.” He bent aside to dodge another Whaler coming through. “We keep moving the bookcases to get them out of its path, but now they’re blocking the doorway. We have to climb in through the windows.”

 _“Nrrgh.”_ Daud scrubbed at his brow. “This place is falling down around my ears.”

“Well, it _is_ Rudshore. The river’s trying to take it back.” The scout stretched over one of the aforementioned warping floorboards. “We’ll have to find somewhere else sooner or later. I’d start looking now, if I were you…”

Daud tuned out. His neck tingled. All of a sudden he felt… watched…

“Though I guess we really don’t know which district the plague is going to clean out next…”

But Daud had stopped listening, and a chill crept up his spine. He glanced behind himself and saw Billie’s red hood amid the sea of blue and gray, staring… just staring…

“Daud?” The scout asked. “Sir? Are you listening?”

Daud shivered.

“I’m sorry, what?”

 

* * *

 

At the turn of the hour the scaffold patrol changed shifts, and Daud closed his office doors behind his back and tried to shake the malaise off.

The new contraband shipment lay spread open by the metal storage crates, full of bolts and chokedust, probably, and stun mines if the smugglers had made out good. Everything else looked the way he’d left it - the drying laundry - the loose wooden planks - so he ignored it as he wandered over to his own confused pile of work.

He dug through it for… what did he come in here to find? More fradulent invoices? He swore he’d known when he’d come in the room.

_Wait._

Daud squinted. And blinked. Something felt out of place. He squinted even harder and took careful inventory of the top of his desk - the punch card stuck halfway in the business end of the audiograph machine, next to the vial of plague elixir to the right of the map, to the right of his stack of water-stained notebooks… propped up…

 _No._ Had he propped those up? He hadn’t. He couldn’t have. Or did he? Maybe last night? His pulse rose and his breath shortened when he thought of someone poring over his business - _who? Billie? She’s the only one who comes in here -_ he saw red - and before he could stop and weigh the consequences he shoved all the paper off, the notebooks, the plague elixir, the map, and they scattered on the hard floor in one crashing fell swoop.

The dust settled. Daud’s heart calmed down and he glanced up from the mess - and found one of his senior recruits patiently waiting across the room.

“Sir?”

 _Oh._ Daud’s ears burned.

“What do _you_ want?”

“Is this a bad time?”

“Uh…” Daud scratched at the back of his head - “no.”

“It’s not urgent, but… some of the others and I wanted to tell you.”

“Spit it out.”

“We’ve heard about a masked man prowling the streets the last few nights.” The recruit’s words echoed off the insides of his mask. “We wonder if it’s the fugitive. Corvo Attano.”

“Could be.” Daud considered it. “Could be nothing.”

“It doesn’t feel like nothing.” The recruit hushed with fear. “One says he saw him crossing rooftops. Using transversals like you. If they’re telling the truth, he could have the Outsider’s Mark - and…” he trailed off - “well. You know.”

Daud stayed silent.

“Sir?”

Daud paced over to his window.

“What else do you know about this Corvo?”

The recruit hesitated. “What do you mean?”

“Where’s he hiding?” Daud pressed him. “What’s he up to?”

“I…” The recruit faltered - “I don’t know.”

“Find out.” Daud became terse to hide the growing unease in his own voice. “I want boltholes. Weapons. Anyone he might be working for.” His arms curled behind his back. “How much he knows about the empress’ death, if you can.”

The recruit bowed. “Consider it done.”

“And… keep it between you and me for now,” Daud added. “I don’t want panic in the ranks.”

“I will.”

The recruit left without fanfare, and Daud listened to the doors shut.

When the light footsteps had faded he shuffled away from the window, and gazed down with despair at the dog-eared mess on his floor. A bill of sale… some wanted poster… the elixir… the map with the pins fallen out.

And he slumped into his writing chair and flung his hands over his face, and let the air drain from his lungs like squeezing bellows out.

The wooden beams groaned above him. A transient rain pattered on the roof, and drops splashed in the bucket across the room.

And he heard a soft transversal behind him.

“You’re not doing well, are you?”

Sounded like Billie.

“No.”

Billie knelt and examined the pile of paper without responding.

“You ever notice how it starts raining when I’m not myself?” Daud thought out loud.

“I hadn’t.”

“I have.” Daud kneaded the bluish dark circles under his eyes. “I think the Outsider’s mocking me.”

“You really think he controls the weather?”

“He controls everything. I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe this’ll raise your spirits.” Billie folded up the old wanted poster. “I found a concrete lead on the name ‘Delilah.’ We’re ready to follow it when you are.”

“Really?” Some of the life bloomed back into Daud’s cheeks. “What is it?”

“There’s a whaling ship called the _Delilah._ Belongs to a Bundry Rothwild.” Billie retrieved his map from the floor and spread it back out over his desk. “It’s been coming and going from his slaughterhouse, down…” she groped for a pin and stuck it in the parchment - “here on the waterfront.”

Daud sat up a little. “Rothwild? You mean the whale oil baron?”

“That’s the one.” Billie returned to the pile, and nudged at the notebooks with her toe instead of picking them up. “I haven’t heard anything specific, but he’s never treated his workers right. They’re getting restless. Unhappy. They could strike as soon as next week.”

Daud eased himself up and off his chair…

“We could use that,” Billie offered. “Seems like a good time to pay a visit to me.”

Daud took a newfound interest in the shipment, and swung around to investigate. He opened one of the compartments and found a bundle of sleep darts, and the thin green fluid in their barrels swilled back and forth as he took them out…

“Why’d he name the ship ‘Delilah?’”

“That I don’t know.” Billie shrugged. “You might ask him when you see him.”

“I might…”

The rain splashed softer in the bucket, and a kingsparrow flapped somewhere in the eaves. Daud spied a handwritten note thumbtacked inside the chest by the rest of the sleep darts - _Only for abductee targets and bounties we need alive._

He read it again. And he deliberated - before he tore it out.

“Do you think you can do it?”

Daud balked. “Do I think I can- what?”

“Kill him?”

“Kill who?”

“Rothwild,” Billie said. “When you’re done with him.”

“I didn’t say we were going to kill him.”

“Oh…”

Daud furrowed the wrinkles on his forehead, and crumpled the note in his fist.

“I just assumed…” Billie began - but didn’t finish her thought.

The rain stopped. The drapes rustled behind Daud’s back. A small, strange discomfort crawled in and settled in his brain, like something in there had started to come loose…

“I didn’t say anything.”


	13. Chapter 12

 

 

* * *

 

In the dank, bloodstained meat locker of his own slaughterhouse, Bundry Rothwild squirmed in his electric chair and began to wake up.

He fidgeted… and yawned… and he slowly came around - then sprang awake and balked at the stinging-cold iron under his sleeve. Cuffed on his wrist? He shook again. Cuffed on both. And a third time. Cuffed on his feet. And he looked left and right and up and down in his agitated state, and left and right one more time before he shouted -

“Hello?!”

Nothing.

“Who did this?!” Rothwild cried. “Is anyone there? Help!”

Still nothing.

Until the whale out on the harvesting floor let out a deep, horrendous groan, that resonated through the drainpipes and the cold concrete walls.

Rothwild fell into a timid silence… and sank back down into his seat.

“You ever listen to the whale songs, Bundry?”

Rothwild jumped out of his skin at the voice.

“What is this?” He panted. “Who are you?”

Silence.

Rothwild rattled his cuffs louder. “Come on, you creepy little shit, come out!”

And after another lingering moment, Daud came out of the shadows - first the toe of his boot, then his belt, then his face.

“They’re my personal favorite.”

“Did that Ames woman hire you?” Rothwild guessed. “I don’t negotiate with strikers!”

“No.”

“Then what?!”

“That’s a nice ship you have. The _Delilah?”_ Daud asked him. “How did it get a name like that?”

“The _Delilah?”_ Rothwild calmed down suspiciously fast. “That’s all you want? That’s easy. I named it after…”

Daud waited…

And Rothwild snickered. “Your left tit.”

So Daud threw the switch on the humming console.

Rothwild’s laughter twisted into a strangled shout. His teeth chattered and some of his greased hair came loose around his ears, and the chair strained against the bolts anchoring it to the floor.

“Ugh…” he shook the shock out - “y-you’re gonna have to do worse than that!” He sprayed spit on the knees of his pants. “One tickle and you expect me to spill? That’s what I pay your sister for at the Cat!”

Daud started to walk away. “My relationship to the Cat is none of your business.”

“Wait a second.” Rothwild peered at him. “That scar… you’re Daud, aren’t you?” He chuckled with anxious frisson. “Ohhh, I bet you’re a sick sonofabitch. Do they charge you extra for that?”

Daud threw the switch again.

_“Aghh!”_

Rothwild bashed against the cuffs - before he caught his labored breath and blinked the sweat off his brow.

“I’ve got more patience then you’ve got nerves, Bundry. Make this easy on yourself.” Daud paced in and out of the harsh yellow light. “Tell me about the ship _Delilah_ \- and how - it got - its name.”

“What’s that name gonna get you, anyway? Money? Leverage on someone?” Rothwild’s fists curled and uncurled. “Whatever they’re paying, I’ll give you double!”

“You’re awfully defensive about something as simple as a boat.” Daud sauntered over to the tile ledge nestled deep in the dark corner. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were protecting someone.”

“So what if I were? I still wouldn’t tell you!” Rothwild snarled. “I don’t cough up my friends for anyone! Especially not cutthroats like you.”

“Hmm.” Daud played his next gambit and picked the nearby cleaver up, dragging it along the tile so the blade made a sickening scrape. “Interesting.” He tilted it up so the sharp edge glinted. “Tell me, Bundry. You can still sign contracts with nine fingers, can’t you?”

“Of course I ca…” Rothwild blanched. “Wait, what…?”

“I said, ‘You can still sign contracts with nine fingers, can’t you?’”

“What?!” Rothwild balled his hands up tight. “No!”

“No?” Daud grabbed Rothwild’s right pinky and raised the cleaver. “That’s a shame…”

“It was Timsh!”

Daud’s ears pricked up.

“I didn’t name it, dammit! Barrister Timsh did.”

Daud leaned in so close he could smell Rothwild’s stale breath. “Why?”

“Because that’s the name of that painter!” Rothwild ranted. “That… _woman_ he was obsessed with.”

“Keep talking.”

“He gave her everything. His time… his fortune… finally he named that ship after her.” Rothwild began to spill, still sweating from the shock. “It was madness, I’m telling you! He didn’t talk about nothing else. But I guess it didn't end pretty, because that ship became bad luck… and he came to me like he had death on his heels, trying to get rid of it.”

“Is that so?”

“On my honor, you bloodthirsty bastard. Now get me out of this chair!”

Daud spidered his fingers back over the heavy switch…

“With pleasure.”

And he threw it one last time.

_“Nghahh!”_

Rothwild spasmed and beat against the chair as the last shock ripped through his bones, and the leather creaked as he fell limp with his feet splayed on the floor.

“That’s funny,” Billie mused from the corner. “I didn’t think he had honor anymore.”

Daud didn’t answer.

“We found some shipping crates down the hall. Looks like they’re bound for Tyvia.” Billie unlocked the reinforced door at her side. “There’s room in one. Where he’d be going, he’d probably never bother us again.”

Daud let the switch go. The old slaughterhouse smell began to seep up from the drain - a mix of gore and industrial cleaner strong enough to start a plague all by itself.

“Though I still don’t see why we shouldn’t kill him.” Billie shrugged. “It’s always worked before.”

Her words fell on distracted ears as Daud gazed down at Rothwild’s neck. A chain. An open collar. The notch of his collarbone. The lump of his Adam’s apple and the lines over his windpipe, measuring him out like a ruler and showing where to cut…

“Daud?”

Daud began to feel almost queasy as he counted the veins in the shadow of Rothwild’s chin - the jugular above, and the fatal artery below. A rivulet of blood ran down the flanks of raw whale meat and dripped on the floor - and he breathed in the acrid drain smell one more time, before…

“Bring in the crate.”

 

* * *

 

“Let me _go!”_

Joanna burst out of the Cat’s washroom and followed the voice down the basement stairs, her pin hanging off the side of her hair and her robe half-flung over her chest. Emily flailed and snatched at the handle of the VIP entrance door, the safety light flickering over her and some of the storage kicked aside, and Custis Pendleton clung to her sweater collar, trying to tear her away.

“I said let me _go!”_

Joanna cut in over them. “What is going _on_ down here?!”

“What does it look like?!” Custis’ feet scraped at the floor. “She’s trying to get away!”

“You can’t stop me!” Emily yelled. “I’ll just try again!”

Custis wrestled her into a headlock. “I’ll have you caned for this!”

“I’m making caning illegal!”

Joanna hovered and waited for the right moment to step in, before Emily wriggled free of Custis’ grip and bit right into his palm.

_“Agh!”_

“All right, everyone, stop!” Joanna grabbed Custis’ shoulder. “Custis, don’t make me throw you out. Emily, go back upstairs.” She pointed up to the landing. “There’s a _reason_ we keep you up there. It’s because the streets outside aren’t safe.”

Custis dumped Emily on the ground like a sack of potatoes. “I won’t forget this…”

“You’re not even…” Joanna muttered in a frustrated haze - “supposed to know that door is _down_ here, Outsider’s blood…”

“Jo?” Loulia came out of the washroom after her and called down from the landing. “What’s happening?”

“I can’t deal with it right now, is what’s happening.” Joanna climbed back up and re-tied her robe and straightened her hairpin, and saw Loulia holding her cincher cockeyed over her ribs and batted her arms out of the way. “What’s wrong with this?”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t quite close.”

“Oh, not you too,” Joanna moaned…

“No, no.” Loulia sucked her stomach in. “I think it’s just wearing out.”

“It’d better be.” Joanna wrenched the ends of the hem together and forced the first hook into its eye. “Listen, I wanted to ask you. Have you seen your friend Janey lately?”

“What’s ‘lately?’”

“In the last, I don’t know, 24 hours?”

Loulia thought about it, but - “no.”

“Damn. I’m worried.” Joanna fastened the rest of the hooks one by one. “I saw her leave last night with the High Overseer, and I haven’t seen her come back.”

“That’s not like her at all…”

“That’s what I thought too.” Joanna tucked a stray thread into the crook of her finger and snapped it off, and gave it one last tug to signify that she’d finished. “Now go, go, go.” She herded Loulia out into the lobby with her. “I’ve got a first-time client today. I don’t want to be late for him.”

“Really? Who?”

 

* * *

 

As soon as Joanna closed her door she recognized the man on her couch.

White coat. White breeches. White cravat. White shock of hair. White boots crossed one leg over the other and trimmed with gold at the knee, and gold buttons and a gold pocket watch and a fat gold signet ring.

“Barrister Timsh.” Joanna sweetened on a dime. “What a surprise.”

The man perked up. “You’re Joanna?”

Joanna grinned. “That’s me.”

“Well.” Timsh smoothed out the hem of his coat. “Come in.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Joanna caught his tone and threw it back. “It _is_ my room.”

Timsh nail-dusted off his buttons and uncrossed his legs.

“You girls must talk amongst each other if you know who I am.”

“Of course we do.” Joanna switched on the red outside lamps. “Aren’t you usually downstairs?”

“I’m bored with my usual visits. I want something different for once.” Timsh sank into the plush upholstery. “I hear you’re the best one here. And I’m always interested in the best.”

Joanna chuckled. “Well, I don’t know who told you that. But for you, I’ll try.” She fanned the train of her robe and swept around to the back of the couch. “Now. What can I do for you?”

“Just a massage, dear. For now.” Timsh inched his ankles apart. “The back and neck, and then my hands. I’ve been suffering from my paperwork.” He rolled out his shoulder joints. “And maybe something else. We’ll see. If you’re a good girl.”

Joanna made a spoiled-meat face behind his head.

“You’ve got a lovely, shapely mouth.” Timsh held his arms up for her to undress him. “I’d love to see what you do with it.”

“I don’t offer that.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

Timsh stiffened his lip. “What _do_ you do?”

“I don’t suck you off, submit to you, or do anything with my back door.” Joanna recited her sales pitch as she took hold of his jacquard lapels. “And it’s a woman you’re getting. Not a girl.” She leaned down to his ear. “Anything else… we’ll talk.”

Timsh mulled it over…

“They weren’t lying about you.”

Joanna tugged him out of his coat. “No they weren’t.”

Timsh splayed his shirtsleeves across the backrest - and coughed up a harsh little laugh.

“Ohh, Arnold. _Arnold,”_ he muttered to himself. “Looks like you’ve done it again.”

Joanna loosened his cravat. “Done what?”

“Put myself in the pot with a bossy woman.” Timsh half-gloated and half-chastised himself. “Housemaids are easy to manipulate, but they just don’t have that…” he made a fist and clicked his tongue for emphasis - _“spice._ ” He let the fist relax. “Like good whiskey. Burns on the way down.”

Joanna snaked her forearms down his front and undid his waistcoat…

“It ended so badly last time. You’d think I’d’ve learned from it,” Timsh moped. “But no.”

Joanna turned his shirt collar down. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

“Nothing’s been the same since Delilah left,” Timsh explained in a mournful voice. “Nothing. I don’t care about the plague, or… if my mother lives or dies. The things I used to love, I just… I don’t know. I feel numb.”

Joanna paused. “Delilah?”

“Yes…”

“You mean Delilah, the painter?”

“Why?”

“Oh… it’s just…” Joanna caught herself and played along - “that’s a shame. I always liked her work.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” Joanna bluffed. “I thought it was so…” _quick, something generic -_ “full of life.”

Timsh cocked an eyebrow. “I’ve never met a courtesan that knew about art.”

 _“Arnold,_ sweetheart.” Joanna patted him on the yoke of his shirt. “Why do you think I cost so much?”

Timsh conceded to her. “Hnh.”

“Tell you what.” Joanna skimmed her fingertips over his neck. “Why don’t you tell me about her?”

Timsh scowled. “I came here to _forget.”_

“I know. It’s hard. You probably think you’ll never find that again.” Joanna pressed down at the base where his hair ended and heard something pop. “But… sometimes when you talk to a friend about what your old flame was like, you realize they weren’t nearly as good as you thought they were.”

Timsh craned his chin down to let her work…

“I loved her terribly.”

“I know.”

“She was so beguiling…” Timsh’s tone dropped like a bag of rocks - “as long as I did what she said.”

Joanna palmed the bump at the nape of his neck. “What do you mean by that?”

“She had moods, you know. Like the river. And she liked to be obeyed.” Timsh relaxed under her grip. “If I went along, she was kind… and loving. The real Delilah. The one I knew.” Detail by detail he began to open up. “But then she’d… withhold from me, and be cruel to me, and wouldn’t even tell me why. I’d apologize and she’d be sweet again, but I didn’t know what I was sorry for.”

“Did you ever ask?”

 _“No._ I didn’t dare.”

Joanna bore down on his shoulder blades. “That’s not very healthy, you know.”

“I know that,” Timsh snapped. “I don’t care. I still want her back. No one’s perfect.”

“I guess that’s true.”

He let his slight frame sway with Joanna’s motions back and forth, and he seemed lost in thought before…

“There was something else.”

Joanna hunched in closer. “What’s that?”

Timsh darkened. “Can you keep secrets?”

“Like a safe.”

Timsh frowned so hard he wrinkled up to his hairline. “I think she was dabbling in the dark arts.”

“You mean like the Outsider?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Timsh hushed. “Sometimes, when she’d visit, the things we’d do were wild… and then I’d… come to my senses, and not remember why I’d done them or where I’d been.” He pieced his memories back together with an apprehensive lilt. “But I was weak, and her will was strong. I-I couldn’t stop.”

“Honestly, she sounds terrifying.” Joanna massaged out to the sides of his ribs. “Did she ever try anything else?”

“Oh, yes. She had these books about… witchcraft, and… ghost stories. She loved ghosts.” Timsh drifted deeper and deeper into his memories. “My niece and I went to a seance once… at the Boyles’ house, at her behest… and we saw a specter of Delilah herself, painting a name on a canvas!” He shuddered. “Chilled me to the bone. I had peculiar dreams for days.”

“A name?” Joanna baited him. “What name?”

“Daud.”

Joanna’s eyes popped. “Oh!”

Timsh grew suspicious again. “You’ve heard of Daud? The Knife of Dunwall?”

“I mean… he’s frightful,” Joanna backpedaled. “Who hasn’t heard of him?”

“True.” Timsh made room for her as Joanna sat next to him on the couch. “Anyway, I kept seeing Delilah after that. But it was always there… in the back of my mind.”

Joanna scooted so that her robe and bustle lay right and picked up his bony hands…

“Maybe you’ll think this is foolish, but… do you think Delilah _was_ a ghost?”

“No. I… well, I’d never thought about it like that.” Timsh seemed taken aback. “She always felt flesh-and-blood.”

Joanna examined his chapped palms… and the lines in his fingernails…

“Hmm.” She got up. “Why don’t I get you some balm?” She slipped over to her cabinet. “Your hands are awfully dry for a barrister…”

“And those are awfully specific questions for a whore.”

Joanna stopped dead.

“Who bribed you? My niece? Delilah?” Timsh stood up after her. _“Daud?”_

Joanna’s throat tightened. “Arnold…”

“Answer my _question.”_

Joanna gripped the edge of the cabinet door. “Arnold, please, calm down…”

Timsh advanced on her. “It was my niece, wasn’t it?”

“I was just trying to keep you company…”

Timsh grabbed her wrist. “Who _was it?!”_

_“Stop!”_

Joanna reached inside with her free arm and seized the first crystal glass she found, and threw it as hard as she could against his chest - and it bounced and shattered on the floor.

Timsh fumed. He let go of her wrist - and gave her a look of unbridled, steaming wrath - and retreated to the couch, his boots crunching on the shards.

“You treacherous little bitch, I… I own half of Dunwall!” He snatched his coat off the back of the couch and tamped down his tousled hair. “I’ll know if you tell anyone! I’ll know! And I _will_ make you pay!”

And he stormed out and banged the door behind him without another word.

Joanna pulled her robe tight around herself and collapsed onto her bed. The hem billowed out around her as she breathed hard into her sleeve, and her heart pounded and her mind raced and the room rocked back and forth…

And one, two Whalers transversed in behind her, just inside her balcony door.

“Miss?” They closed in on her quick. “Is everything all right?”

“Go!” She shooed them away, snarling and shaking - “go - go! Tell him every word!”


	14. Chapter 13

 

 

* * *

 

“Didn’t I say months ago that we’d go after Barrister Timsh?”

A breeze blew over the Legal District rooftops and under Daud’s crouched feet, and rippled the long red banners on the white estate across the road.

And Billie sat very, very still beside him, her eyes on the ground below her.

“You did.”

The hired guards leaned on the fence and smoked in the security post, and the rest walked a mind-numbing beat back and forth around the block. Daud counted the whale oil power cords running through the courtyard - a spotlight - an alarm - no arc pylons - no walls of light.

“Isn’t there a reward on his head?” Billie asked.

“I can’t remember. Probably.” Daud scratched the bridge of his nose. “It’s always a question of sooner or later with men like him.”

Billie reached behind herself and leafed through her recon notes - then set them back down and inched her head over the roof.

“By the way, General Turnbull’s coming for a social call this afternoon.” She watched one of the officers snuff his cigarette out under his boot. “Thought you’d want to be done with it by the time he shows up.”

“Well.” Daud loaded his wristbow with a sleep dart. “Guess I’d better get going, then.”

“All right. What’s the plan?”

“I ran into some noble on my way through the neighborhood.” Daud hunched back down on the ledge that faced Timsh’s front windows. “He gave me a forged seizure notice. Said I could beat Timsh at his own game.”

“And how does that work?”

“I’ll go around the side of the street and find a way to smoke him out.” Daud searched in his belt pouches and pulled out a pocket spyglass. “Plant the seizure notice where Turnbull will see it. They’ll arrest him. Problem solved.”

An uncomfortable silence.

“Billie?”

“Him too, huh?”

A sparrow alighted on the chimney beside them, and Daud stretched the spyglass out…

“Billie, are you trying to tell me something?”

“No.” Billie’s hood turned as she tracked a different guard. “First Rothwild in a shipping crate. Now putting Timsh in jail.” One short sentence after the other. “It’s different. That’s all.”

“We don’t need the barrister dead. Just out of the way.” Daud scanned the top floor, then the next one down, and saw a maid sweeping under a rug. “If this works the way it should, I won’t even need the witchcraft charge.”

Billie paused.

“Witchcraft?”

“I heard when he was with Delilah, she used to… impress on him her taste in books.” Daud lowered the spyglass. “Bone charms. Blood rituals. Interesting reading. But illegal.” He unsnapped the pouch it came from and put it back. “If Turnbull caught it on Timsh’s bookshelf, he’d never see daylight again.”

“Oh.”

One of the lower ranking guards wandered off to relieve himself.

“You heard that from Joanna, didn’t you?”

Daud snapped the pouch shut again. “That’s right.”

“I saw her once,” Billie reminisced to no one in particular. “She’s pretty.”

Another Whaler signaled from the nearby streetlamp, and one disappeared into the abandoned flat. Billie craned over the roof again to keep her eye on the wayward guard - and he leaned against the wall and lit another cigarette. False alarm.

“Daud?”

“Yes?”

“Does she know anything else about Delilah?”

“No.”

Daud dusted off his glove and readied himself to jump to the next rooftop - but before he leaped, he wondered…

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

 

* * *

 

Late that night the Cat curled up and settled down to sleep, and slowly but surely a deep, soft trance crept into its damask walls.

The evening dew frosted the windows and a chill crawled in between the panes, and drafts rustled the curtain tassels and the fringe that touched the floor. Men dozed off in the darkened parlor to wait for the curfew to lift, on cushions and couches with their shirts rumpled and their waistcoats and cravats undone.

And upstairs Joanna knocked on the middle dormitory door.

“Lady Emily?”

No answer. The smell of sausage wafted up from her tray.

So she knocked one more time. “Emily?”

_“Is that you, Jo?”_

“It’s me.”

_“You can come in.”_

Joanna nudged the door open with her back and crept inside. The old candelabra flickered and Emily bent over her mattress in the feeble glow, drawing a pair of long, thin cats with her yellow and black crayons.

“What is it?”

“I brought you some dinner.” Joanna knelt and set the tray down. “Leftovers, I know. But I got you more sausage. That’s fancy, right?”

“Really?” Emily shuffled her drawing aside. “You know, some of the other ladies get me food, too. But you’re the only one that gets me sausage.”

“Uh… thanks. I try.”

Emily scooted the tray toward her lap, and she went to work on the sausage and the fork and knife. She cut it into two, three, four dainty bites, the way they taught her at court…

And Joanna felt awkward.

“Do you… need anything? An extra blanket, or something?”

The plate clinked. “No thanks. I’m fine.”

Joanna twisted a lock of her bangs…

“I’m sorry,” she admitted. “I’m not really anyone’s mother.”

“It doesn’t matter. I like you. You can be a big sister instead.” Emily set her knife down. “You’re nicer than the Pendletons, whatever you are.”

Joanna couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, that’s not hard.”

“They’re the meanest, nastiest bullies…” Emily stabbed at the sausage pieces - “in the history of…” stab, stab - _“ever!”_ She finally picked one to eat. “I always said so. And no one believed me.”

Joanna didn’t say anything.

Emily finished chewing before she spoke. “Jo?”

“Oh. I… I was just… thinking.” Joanna came back around. “The world’s full of bullies, isn’t it?”

“I know, and I don’t get why.” Emily tore the heel off her bread. “It doesn’t make sense that a person could feel good from being unkind.”

“Oh, I can think of a hundred reasons.” Joanna sank to the hard, scuffed floor. “They could feel entitled to it. Maybe they get a little power, and… once they’ve tried it, they can’t stop.” Her heart began to deflate as her thoughts drifted to Daud. “Some people are pushed around too long, and they get tired of feeling small - so when they grow up, they’ll stop at nothing to feel bigger than someone.” She shrugged. “Those are the sad ones. At least for me.”

“Oh.” Emily broke the bread slice into even smaller pieces. “Well, I’ve never done that to anyone. At least I hope not.” She gnawed off some of the crust. “All I want is to go on a sailing ship, or fight pirates with my friend Corvo. But those are always the things that people tell me I can’t do.”

“I know. It’s not the easiest thing to be a girl in Dunwall.” Joanna looked downcast. “But when you become empress, you’ll be the most important girl in the world.” She brightened. “How ‘bout _that,_ huh?”

“Honestly, it scares me.” Emily eyed her drawing again. “So many big things to decide.”

“Well, you can decide to help the poor. That would be a start.” Joanna crossed her ankles in front of her. “The maids. The riverboatmen. Working girls like me. It’s what we’d all like to think your mother would’ve done.”

Emily polished off her milk with no response.

“Forgive me.” Joanna remembered. “I didn’t mean to remind you of her.”

“Everybody keeps saying that, but it doesn’t bother me.”

“What’s the matter, then?”

“I don’t think I’m that hungry.” Emily hugged her knees. “I’m sorry.”

“Forget it. It won’t go to waste.” Joanna rose and bent back down to gather up the tray, and headed back through the long, sparse room toward the hall. “You get a good night’s sleep, all right?”

“All right. I’ll try.”

But as soon as Joanna made it to the doorway…

“Jo?”

“Yes?”

Emily unbuckled her shoes. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you like the men who visit you?”

Joanna felt awkward again.

“Uhh…” She rubbed at the nape of her neck - “that’s a little adult.”

“It’s all right.” Emily’s voice fell. “I know what happens here.”

“Oh.” Joanna thought about it, then - “well… in which case… maybe one.”

Emily lay her sweater by the mattress. “Is he a nice man?”

Joanna sighed. “No. He’s not.”

Emily crawled under her blanket. “Then why do you like him?”

“Because he could be.” Joanna stared at the ground. “If he wanted to.”

“You’re confusing.” Emily propped herself up - then blew the candles out. “Good night.”

“Sure.” Joanna balanced the tray against her forearm and reached for the door handle. “Good night.”

 

* * *

 

The red lamps glowed in the hallway as the last of the courtesans trailed to bed - slow and sleepy in their gossip and some giggly with drink - and Joanna let herself into her room and shed her robe like an old, sad skin.

The river wind rustled the curtains, and her light had snuffed itself out for lack of oil. Daud lay snug under her bedcovers in his short-sleeved undershirt, his mouth at ease and his body limp and the lines on his brow somehow smooth.

So Joanna watched him for a minute with a fond expression on her face.

A lock of hair tickled his forehead, and his chest rose and fell with his soft snores. His nose twitched, and in the moment Joanna thought that he’d wake up - but he took another deep, serene breath and curled his arm under her pillow. When she’d had enough she shuffled over to her vanity and rummaged for her jar of cotton balls - no, maybe the other drawer - well, _somehow_ she had to take her makeup off - and saw his coin purse in front of the mirror, next to her powder puff.

She studied the dark leather - and deliberated - and she bit her lip. Coins of ten and fifty lay scattered over the tabletop - one, two, five - her entire fee.

So she glanced behind herself - and saw Daud unmoving, still asleep…

And she unfastened the purse and dropped the coins back in, one by one.


	15. Chapter 14

 

 

* * *

 

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

Joanna made her way up the service stairs at a leisurely pace for once, her robe pulled up to her neck for convenience and a laundry basket under her arm. The natural noises of daily life drifted in and out through the walls - someone ran water in the bathroom, someone slammed a door - and furtive voices ghosted down from the landing above.

_“Are you doing anything tonight, then?”_

_“Huh?”_

_“I mean after work…”_

_“Why?”_

_“Does it matter? We’ll think of something. I just wanna get some time alone…”_

A pillowcase slipped out and Joanna bent to pick it up, and scratched the back of her finger on that nasty floorboard nail.

_“Are you crazy? We’re right next to Prudence’s room…”_

_“Prudence is in her office, it’s all right…”_

Joanna stifled a yawn in the back of her wrist…

_“Now come here, will you…?”_

And when she surfaced on the next landing she found two of the parlor girls, hand in hand, necking in the shadow of the green drape.

“Oh! Jo.” They leaped away from each other and smoothed their skirts. “I… we… it’s not- you know- we were just…”

Joanna nudged one in the shoulder with her basket-side hand. “How are you holding up?”

“All right. Um… I think the tea’s done working.”

“Good.” Joanna sized her up - no swelling - no pallor - great. “I don’t think you should be up yet, though. I want you back in bed.”

“But Prudence said I had- I’ll get in trouble…”

 _“Back._ In bed.” Joanna repeated herself in a firm voice, then softened up. “Isn’t it your birthday in a few days?”

“I think so…”

Joanna nodded to the other girl. “Get her something nice. She’s had a rough week.”

She heard one of them sigh with relief as she continued toward the top floor. Stair. After stair. Days like this wore out her calves. The light bulb flickered in its cage guard when she ran out of stairs to climb - honestly, they had to do _something_ about those old mattresses - and more gossip floated through the hall on the smell of cheap tobacco smoke.

_“Hey, d’you hear about the Abbey?”_

_“What’ve they gone and done now?”_

_“They sent out one of them declarations about that tool Joanna’s got…”_

_“Which one?”_

_“The one when she does our checkups. You know, that screwy thing. Says it ‘opens ladies to the Void’s corruption,’ and turns them into ‘brazen whores!’”_

_“Well, I never seen one before I met her, and look how I turned out!”_

Laughter erupted from the room.

_“Campbell should’ve known, he was coming in here three times a week!”_

The laughter intensified.

Joanna bit her lip and swallowed a private chuckle of her own. She slid in through the doorway with the laundry on her hip, and the girls jumped with fright and almost dropped their cigarettes.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Oh. Sorry.” They settled down. “We thought you might’ve been Prudence.”

Joanna shuddered. _“Eugh._ Don’t say that. Now you’re scaring _me.”_

“So we’re not in trouble?”

“No.” Joanna pointed back out into the hall. “But you will be if you don't go smoke outside.”

Their heels clicked as they got up from the bed and scuttled out, and Joanna roved around gathering up all the clothes she could find. A slip. A brassiere. An- _oh._ Someone had started their monthly course. Joanna made a mental note to find who those belonged to and admonish her about that, and waved the last of the smoke out and snatched the last of the drawers.

But as she reached for a pillowcase, something metal screeched and grated outside - like someone trying to open one of the heavy hallway windows.

Joanna’s fist tightened around the edge of the pillow. She stayed very, very still, and waited for something else - but except for a mourning dove and a crackle in the eaves, she heard nothing else.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Jo, I thought you had that doctor coming in for his sulfate bath.”

Down in the bathroom Betty toweled off her face and opened her powder jar, and pulled at her cheeks in the mirror between the spots where the nitrate had worn off. Beatrice fussed with her tied-up rag curls and dropped them on the counter one at a time, and Joanna rested on the lip of the long basin and rubbed her forearms in the cold.

“Yuck,” Beatrice cut in. “The one who always wants you to read him those fetish stories?”

“That’s him.” Joanna tugged her sleeves down as far as she could. “I was supposed to have him at four, but he canceled at the last minute. I’ve got to do something other than chew the walls for the rest of the afternoon.”

Betty batted a powder cloud in the air. “Not waiting around for your mystery man?”

“Ugh, no. I’m too antsy. I have been since I woke up.” Joanna studied the blue lines on the inside of her wrist. “I’ve been trying to clean Emily’s room, as much as anything up there can be cleaned.” Then her nails - a chip in the polish on her pinky and thumb. “Some more candles. A fresh blanket. Make it a little less depressing, I don’t know.”

Beatrice wrinkled her nose. “You’re not her maid, Jo. She’s old enough to do it herself.”

“I mean, _I_ did it at her age, but… she’s the future empress.” Joanna noticed one of the faucets dripping behind her back. “And as much as I’d _love_ to teach the ones above a thing or two about the ones below…” she stood up and latched onto it and pushed - and _pushed_ …

“Pick your battles?” Betty asked.

Joanna grunted as the faucet lurched and stopped dripping. _“Ungh-_ that’s right.” She pat-dried her hands on the hips of her robe. “She’s a nice girl. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“And, you know, no hard feelings, but haven’t the twins found her a governess yet?” Beatrice looped one of the ties back and forth around a tangle. “It’s been six months. They’re kinda stretching our hospitality.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Betty dotted her dark powder on her cheekbones and the center of her chin. “If you think they were looking for one in the first place, you don’t know the Pendletons.”

Muffled laughter came in from the lobby, and someone jiggled the locked service door. Joanna rolled her eyes at the thought of the Pendletons, and wiped some grime off the faucet with her thumb, before…

“Betty, if I ask you a strange question, will you answer?”

“Sure.”

“Have you been feeling out-of-sorts today?”

Betty’s powder jar clattered. “No…”

“Huh.” Joanna smelled a basket of meat buns from down the street lying out on the table, and she seized one and took an unladylike bite before she sat down on the spindly chair. “Well, I wasn’t kidding about being antsy. I keep feeling this sort of… dread.” She covered her full mouth as she talked. “Like I’m forgetting something important, or… something’s about to go wrong.”

And she caught Beatrice staring at her…

So she swallowed and said, “What?”

“Oh.” Beatrice untied another curl. “I just realized, I’ve… never seen you eat.”

“What’d you think?” Joanna took another bite. “I lived on perfume and stardust?”

“Well, I…” Beatrice thought about it - “guess you always looked like you did.”

“Good.” Joanna gulped it down. “That’s what I want men to think. Anyway, I’m probably just hearing things. I didn’t sleep that well last night.”

“That and the Steam Room pipes almost overheated again yesterday.” Betty blended her powder down the sides of her nose with her ring finger. “I mean, that always puts me on edge when it happens. I don’t know about you.”

“What a mess.” Joanna stretched the skin on her eye as she massaged her temple back and forth. “Wish our old repairman hadn’t caught the plague. Everything’s a wreck down there.”

“If you ask me, everything feels like a bad omen these days.” Beatrice picked at a too-tight knot. “First the empress’s killer breaks out, then Janey never came back…”

“Wait,” Joanna interrupted, “she never came back?”

“No…” Beatrice finally plucked it out with her fingernails - “and now the High Overseer’s kicked out! Somebody gave him the Heretic’s Brand.”

Joanna shoveled the last of the meat bun down her throat. “What?”

“I know!” Beatrice unraveled the last tie at the back of her scalp. “Loulia told me yesterday. I wonder if it was that… masked man my clients keep talking about.”

“Yours too, huh?” Betty asked.

“Mine too.”

“Must be everyone’s.”

Betty brushed her eyebrows up, and Beatrice finger-combed her new curls out…

“Hey, I don’t mean to be superstitious…”

Betty put her eyebrow brush away. “It’s all right, go ahead. We know you are…”

“But do think they’re all connected?” Beatrice gathered the wrinkled hair rags by the fistful. “It just seems like a lot to be coincidence..."

And as Betty picked up her rouge, one of the back stairs creaked.

Beatrice started. Betty dropped the jar lid on the floor. Joanna clutched her robe ties and looked fast to the doorway, and she squinted… and saw… no one… in the shadows of the stairwell.

“Outsider’s eyes.” Betty shivered. “Maybe we’re all hearing things.”

 

* * *

 

Joanna tiptoed down into the Steam Room one stone step at a time, and one of the Pendletons’ bodyguards bumped her shoulder on his way up.

The boiler hummed and the wall fountain trickled and an old stocking lay on the bench, and the steam licked at Joanna’s skin and beaded on the back of her neck. She checked over her shoulder once - twice as she walked, to make sure - nothing either time, but… a third for good measure? _Phew._ No one.

On the other side of the fishpond the laundry trolley sat where she’d left it, and she hurried around to the old canvas sides and started rifling through its depths. A Gold Room pillowcase… a camisole… a handful of washcloths…

 _“Month of Timber…”_ said - Loulia, maybe? - in the private room…

Joanna kept digging. An oil-stained sheet… Betty’s lavender bathrobe…

 _“We’re not born courtesans, you know,”_ Loulia said. _“I used to be a clerk for Lord Estermont.”_

The humidity crept under Joanna’s hair, and made her forehead tingle and her scalp sweat. The heat pressed on her lungs and she dug faster - _where did it go?_ \- Portia’s skirt, Violetta’s socks - bathmats - and _finally!_ Emily’s blanket. She yanked it out and folded, in half, in half, in thirds…

_“Was a shame about the sewer line…”_

And she heard a harsh, sudden _tink,_ like a makeup tube hitting the floor.

Joanna’s head flew over her shoulder. “All right, who’s there?!”

No answer.

“Anyone?”

Again, no response. The steam hovered in a still, soft cloud, like no one had passed through it since her.

So Joanna mustered her courage and held the blanket tight to her chest - and took one measured step at a time around to the other side of the pond.

 _No. It couldn’t._ But she frowned, and tried one more time…

“Daud? Is that you?”

And she got nothing in return but Loulia’s mumble through the wall.

 _All right._ Joanna took a deep breath. _No more of this nonsense._ She puffed out her chest and stiffened her lip and marched right back upstairs, refusing to watch her step or look back when one of the doors opened and shut.

 

* * *

 

“Captain, I’ve told you that will be thirty coins every time…”

Prudence craned over the hallway table by the plate of fruit and oil lamp, underlining one of her flyers as the uniformed client read along. The last of the Pendletons’ guards streamed down to the lobby and Joanna stumbled in through the parlor doorway, out of the stifling heat into the bracing cold.

“I’m sorry, we don’t take credit.” Prudence tapped the paper with the nib of her pen. “Thirty coins. Every time.”

“You took credit before you closed, didn’t you?”

“No, dear, we never have…”

Joanna slithered her way through the guards…

“Well, my friend told me you did…”

And Joanna jostled the captain right in the back.

“Oh!” She gripped the folded-up blanket. “Captain, hello, pardon me…”

“Watch where you’re going,” the captain growled…

“Hey, Jo, I wanted to…” Violetta came up the main staircase - “whoa, are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Oh.” Joanna shook it off. “I- sure, I’m fine.”

“Hey, Jo.” Another greeted her from by the fireplace. “The Pendletons left just now. Thought you’d wanna know.”

“Where were they going?”

“I don’t know. They said they had an appointment at 7:00…”

“Well, all right. Good riddance, I guess.” Joanna slipped through the personnel door, and kept going past Prudence’s office and up the service stairs. “Why is it so drafty back here?”

“You asking me, Jo?” Someone hollered down at her.

“Do you know why?”

“Somebody left the VIP door open…”

“The Pendletons?”

“I dunno, I just found it open…”

“Why?”

Joanna grumbled and pressed on past the statue and candlestick, and all the other clutter that littered the stairwells, the blanket tight in the crook of her arm. As soon as her legs began to feel it she reached the last landing and the dormitory floor, and she folded the slipping blanket back together and called out -

“Emily?”

Nothing.

“Emily? Are you in there?” Joanna edged closer to Emily’s room. “Your blanket’s out of the wash…”

Joanna still heard nothing coming from behind the door - just the same uncanny quiet that she had felt downstairs. No rats. No talking in the stairwells. Not even girls getting dressed…

So she nudged it open an inch, then further… then all the way…

“Emily?”

But all that remained of Lady Emily lay by the mattress on the old, dark rug - a dainty, shell-pink hairbow, and a green crayon, nothing more.


	16. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for off-screen physical abuse.

 

 

* * *

 

_Splash! Splash!_

Daud kicked up puddles as he ran past clanking pipes and scuttling rats, through the narrow sewer tunnel toward the heart of the Flooded District.

_Splash! Splash!_

The drain gurgled and moss dangled and sludge dripped from the ceiling cracks, and green reflections rippled across Daud’s face and coat.

_Splash! Splash!_

He maneuvered himself up the slippery steps to the rusted gate, and searched for the key in his pocket before he jammed it in the lock. It resisted - he pushed harder - it turned, but still didn’t give way - and with an impatient slam of his shoulder, it opened and he stormed through.

His footsteps echoed beneath him as he slowed to a stop, and the gate hinges let out a long, sickening creak as they shut behind him. Something felt wrong. He should have seen two of his scouts guarding the tunnel when he came in. He should have seen someone here to meet him when he came out. Faint, unfamiliar voices came down from the upper floors - close enough to unsettle him, far enough that he couldn’t pick out words - and the sharp, dry smell of something burning stung in his nose…

And as he came near the supply shelf, someone grabbed him by his arm.

Daud let out a startled gasp, and his head whipped around - and he saw Billie behind him, bedraggled and wet.

“Daud, we’ve been attacked!”

“What?!”

“It’s the Overseers! They charged on us!” Billie caught her breath and stood straight up. “They’ve got our men, they- they have music boxes, our powers don’t work… they’ve got us captured, they’re going through us one by one, looking for you.”

Daud scanned the empty tunnel. “Where’s their leader?”

“He’s already in your room…”

“How many are there?”

“I don’t know…”

“This place was supposed to be abandoned. How did they know we were here?!”

“That’s all I can tell you.” Billie started to back away from him. “I’m sorry…”

And she transversed away before he could respond.

Daud ran to the spot where she’d stood and threaded his fingers through the shadowy dust, and shouted up to the rats and the pipes overhead -

“Wait!”

 

* * *

 

And at the Cat Joanna chased a fleeing man down the main staircase, her hair and robe disheveled and her face flushed with boiling blood.

“How _dare_ you!”

The man buttoned his waistcoat and knotted his cravat as he fled, tripping over the last step and stumbling down onto the entry floor.

“How dare you do that to one of our girls, that is a _crime!”_

The man wrestled himself into his coat sleeves, and his untied shoe flew off his foot…

“Get out!” Joanna hounded him across the lobby and all the way out the front doors, and hurled his shoe after him in the direction of his head. “Get _out!_ If I see your face in here again, I’m calling the City Watch!”

The man barreled through the courtyard, smashing into the bushes hip-first, and rounded the corner at the entrance arch and disappeared down the street. Joanna huffed like a steaming kettle and looked back to the stairs, where a group of girls had gathered - watching - and cowering - and holding their breath…

And she threw her finger up and growled,

 _“Don’t_ tell Prudence I did that!”

 

* * *

 

Daud raided the gate room supply shelf like a man looting for his life, stuffing his pockets and pouches as bolts and papers scattered on the ground.

Chokedust on his hip - sleep darts on his chest - no, two pouches’ worth, just in case. The grenades and the district map went in his lining pockets so that no one else could find them, and - _Billie, Outsider’s eyes, where did she go? -_ he made for the chain that led up through the holes in the commerce building’s floors.

 

* * *

 

And as the water heater clattered and heaved down in the Cat’s dim bathroom, Joanna wet a cloth and dabbed at the swollen cut on Violetta’s cheek.

“Come on. You can tell me.” She eased off when Violetta winced. “What happened in there?”

“It was nothing, I shouldn’t have said anything…”

Joanna glared at her. “What - _happened?”_

“Jo, it’s not a big deal, I promise…”

“It _is_ a big deal, and you’re going to _tell_ me.”

“I just told him he had to pay…”

Joanna stopped to listen and lowered the washcloth.

“He had a couple things and he was going to just leave, and I tried to put my foot down.” Violetta sniffed as a spot of blood trickled out of her nose. “You saw what happened to the last girl who let one run out…”

Joanna wiped up the blood. “I know, but Prudence wasn’t here this time…”

“She finds out!” Violetta wailed. “She always finds out…”

A sinking paranoia grew in the back of Joanna's thoughts, but she shook it off. _Not now, Jo. Not the time._ She pinched Violetta’s nose while she rinsed the cloth under the tap, and wrung it out and brought it back up and brushed the outline of her black eye.

“All right, that’s not what I told him.”

Joanna pulled the washcloth away a little. “What?”

“I mean, I’m scared of Prudence, too.” Violetta gulped. “But I said I was a good worker, and I deserved to be paid for what I’d done.”

Joanna hesitated…

Violetta’s gaze sank to the floor. “I just did what I thought you’d do.”

So Joanna let out a mournful noise and hugged Violetta to her breast, and screwed her eyes shut very, very tight.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

 

* * *

 

“Billie?!”

Daud clambered up the precarious chain as fast as he could, his teeth clenched and his sword in his belt and his toes struggling to keep ahold. He heaved himself by one floor - up another - past sodden paintings and salvaged desks - and soon he heard the voices again, Overseers, stern and muffled behind their masks.

_“Have you found him yet?”_

_“No…”_

_“Come on, Daud has to be somewhere…”_

The cold air bit at Daud’s ears, and the wind whistled through the holes in the walls. Just as his hands began to ache he saw a level with an open window, and he swung himself back to gain momentum - and sailed into the smashed floorboards.

_“Nrgh!”_

He grunted - and hoisted himself up - and - _ngh!_ \- scrambled to his feet - and raced to the window and threw the long, blue drape aside…

And when he saw the scene before him, he made an undignified wheeze in his throat.

Billows of smoke rose from the ruined building across the street, and when a pack of hounds barked beneath him, Daud flattened himself against the window frame. Boot stomps echoed into the distance as Overseers marched across the district, two-by-two - amid the rubble, along the scaffolds, wading waist-deep in the flood.

And he whispered one more time into the Void, shivering and alone -

“Billie?”

 

* * *

 

“Now, go on up to the dormitory, and get a good night’s sleep.”

Violetta lingered outside Joanna’s door. “All right…”

“I want to help you with your makeup tomorrow, so get up early if you can.” Joanna tucked Violetta’s limp bangs away from her face. “We’ll need a few different colors to really cover it. Maybe we can borrow some from Genevieve…”

“You don’t have to do that.” Violetta shied away. “I’m sorry I troubled you with all this…”

 _“Please.”_ Joanna shook Violetta’s shoulders a little. “Stop. I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide these things from me.”

“Don’t worry,” Violetta murmured down to the rug. “If I trusted anyone, it’d be you.”

“Well… it’s a start.” Joanna smiled and thumbed at Violetta’s cheek. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Joanna watched her leave before she stole into her room, and turned on her lamp and warmed herself for a minute by its light. She yawned. She stretched her arms. She took her boots off and wiggled her toes. Her bed lay before her, just made that evening, with fresh pillows propped on the headboard - and just as she switched off the lamp and went to turn the covers down -

_Thud._

A great, human-sized mass fell hard against her door.

Joanna jumped. “Who’s there?”

_“Joanna?”_

Daud? Of course Daud. Who else?

_“Outsider’s blood, let me in.”_

Joanna set down her pillow. “Daud, what are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer - but she also didn’t hear loud footsteps - or hurry in his voice. She squinted with suspicion and studied the handles on her door…

“Daud, do you know what _time_ it is?”

_“Joanna, don’t make me beg.”_

The ache in Daud’s voice took Joanna aback. She left the bare pillow on the end of the bed and crept across the room, and she pulled open the heavy door handles…

And she saw Daud hanging like a propped-up corpse in the unlit doorway - unbathed, uncombed, shirt open at the neck, defeated in his posture and dark under his brow.

“Outsider’s eyes,” Joanna exclaimed, but tried to keep quiet. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Sleep?” She slap-patted at his hollow cheeks to examine them. “This is more than sleep. You look like you’ve got the _plague.”_

“I might as well.” Daud stumbled inside. “I’m going to lose my mind.”

Joanna grumbled, but closed the door behind him. _“Now_ what disaster are you dropping in my lap?”

“I’ll pay you for your time and the bed…” Daud nearly crashed into the flower vase on his way across the room - “I just need a…” he capsized onto her duvet like a ragdoll - _“ugh.”_

Joanna grimaced and held her forehead. So much for the fresh sheets.

“Well…” She looked left and right, floundering for something to do - “wow. You’ve kind of stuck a pin in my evening, haven’t you?”

“Just let me lie here,” Daud mumbled. “Maybe I’ll pass out.”

“And where am _I_ supposed to sleep tonight?”

Daud hesitated.

“I haven’t thought this through.”

“Fine, I’ll do it for you.” Joanna twisted the lock and opened the drawer over her oil cabinet. “If you’re paying, get up. On your knees. We’ll do this the -”

“Please, no.”

The peculiar taken-aback feeling settled back into Joanna’s gut. He sounded so… small all of a sudden. And humble. And desperate. So she eased the drawer shut and Daud sank deeper into the downy duvet, on his stomach with his neck twisted so he could still breathe...

And after another uneasy moment, she finally told him…

“Don’t do that.”

Daud didn’t unstick his cheek from the covers. “What?”

“Don’t try to sleep on your stomach. You’ll wake up with a neckache.” Joanna nudged her shoes aside with her foot and crawled up to his side on top of the bed. “Roll over and put your head in my lap.”

Daud craned his head up to see her. “Why?”

“It’s something my mother used to do. Trust me. It works.”

Daud considered it… and reconsidered… and finally did as she asked.

“Sometimes my mother would come upstairs at night, and I’d still be awake.” Joanna arranged herself on her heels and brushed the hem of her robe aside. “So she’d come in and sit on my bed, and stroke my hair, and ask me why. Most of the time it was because I’d had a scary dream the night before, so I didn’t want to let myself fall asleep. I was afraid of what I’d see.”

Daud pointed to her thighs. _There?_ Joanna nodded, _that’s right,_ and he scooted back on weak elbows and lowered his head onto her warm skin.

“Sometimes it was wolfhounds. Sometimes it was strange men.” Joanna tried to keep her words soft and monotone as she told her story. “‘Strange men,’ I know. I get a good laugh from that one. But one time I told her I’d heard about the Outsider at school, and it was _him_ I was afraid to see…” she touched Daud’s temples - “and you know what she said?”

“What?”

“That if I ever met the Outsider, to stand up very, very straight…” Joanna smoothed back his sideburns - “and tell him that if he was going to be cruel to me, he could take it up with her.” Her thumbs coasted over his earlobes. “Because she would march right into the Void herself, and she would make him cry.”

Daud creaked into an almost-smile. “What I’d give to watch.”

But as Joanna stroked his cheekbones and the place where his jaw hinged in front of his ears, his mouth fell.

“You still miss her, don’t you?”

Joanna looked away. “I still do.”

An awkward silence descended between them, and Joanna realized she’d stopped rubbing his head. She busied herself with the top of his scalp - his hairline - and his crown - and his short, waxed hair gave way in her hands as she outlined circles in his sides.

But the silence still felt too full.

“What was it, Daud? Really?”

Daud drew a long, shaky breath, like she’d asked if she could pull his tooth. And he let a moment hang - and another - before he answered.

“Billie’s gone.”

Joanna waited for context, or… _something._

“Bright-eyed Billie. She’s gone.”

Joanna nudged him for more. “Where?”

“Far from this place. I don’t know.”

Joanna decided to let him keep talking for once.

“The Overseers had been… looking for me. Delilah convinced her to tell them where I was.” Daud began on shaky words. “She wanted to capture me. To kill me. Take the Whalers for her own.”

“Outsider’s blood,” Joanna whispered, despite herself.

“Delilah’s been… building a coven out at the Brigmore mansion for… who knows how long, and she’d been… bewitching Billie. To turn against me. And I never knew.”

Joanna remembered to rub again, and she traced the valleys of his long, deep scar.

“I always thought I’d go to one of my own. Someone would get stronger. Take my place.” As Daud rolled with the motions of her fingers his eyelids started to sink. “That’s the natural order of things. And a month, a week, I… three weeks? Was it three weeks ago?”

“What?”

“That I asked you about Delilah.”

“Four weeks ago.”

“Right.” Daud inhaled deep and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Four weeks. I’m… losing track of time.”

Joanna’s heart twinged as she heard him struggle with gathering his thoughts.

“Four weeks ago, I would’ve killed her. In front of everyone.” Daud let his hand go limp on his chest. “Made an example of her for failing. But she gave herself up before I could… and admitted she’d been wrong.”

Joanna tensed…

“And I couldn’t.” He wet his lips and pressed them into his teeth. “I let her go.”

Joanna’s stomach relaxed and flooded with relief.

“What a cesspool Dunwall is to have cost me so much.” Daud swallowed hard - and faltered - and his voice stuck in his throat. “And all I would’ve had to do was turn Hiram Burrows down.”

A draft crept in through the panes of Joanna’s balcony door, and through his sleepy haze Daud let out a disappointed sigh.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.”

“Because you want someone to reassure you that you did the right thing.”

“Well?” Daud searched her face. “Did I?”

Joanna swept a loose hair away from his brow.

“Yes, Daud. I’m proud of you.”


	17. Chapter 16

 

 

* * *

 

The next week Daud walked alone through the bitter morning wind, as it howled over the craggy rocks and between the harrowing cliffs.

Smokestacks puffed on the horizon. The waves crashed far below. The bridge suspenders heaved and groaned and gulls roosted by the gate, and the grim majesty of Coldridge Prison loomed on the other side - tall and gray and lined with barred windows like great black organ pipes.

Daud rolled his shoulders to try to shake out the itch in his gold-trimmed sleeves. Too short. Too small under the arms. Too tight through the shoulders, too, he felt, and the pants too tight through the legs, and his calves strained and his arches sat wrong in the unfamiliar boots. But he kept walking. And kept walking. _Stay calm. Don’t talk too much._

And as he crossed the long iron bridge he murmured into his hard white mask.

“Thomas?”

A new voice echoed in his head, deeper and less familiar. _“Yes?”_

“Are you in position?”

_“Yes we are.”_

“Good.” Daud adjusted the saber at his side. “I’ll get you in the gate.” One, two more steps, and he heard the hair-raising discord of an Overseer music box. “They’ve got one of those boxes in the yard. You won’t have your powers until we’re inside.”

_“I heard that. I think we’ve found a way to improvise.”_

“Good.”

One of the gulls took off into the white, overcast sky.

 _“How are you feeling?”_ Thomas volunteered, after a silent minute.

“Why?”

_“New second-in-command duties. I just thought I should ask. I know Billie was close to…”_

“Forget it,” Daud grumbled. “I’m…” he took a deep breath and looked down - “I’m fine.”

A long, skeptical pause.

_“If you say so.”_

“And remember, we’re just here to break out Lizzy Stride. Nothing else.” Daud hushed as the gate grew closer and closer. “Without her boat, we can’t get to Brigmore, and…”

“Stop!”

Daud froze. The gate guard approached him, his coat flapping and his helmet pulled low over his face, and he took a good, long squint at Daud before he said…

“Oh. It’s you.”

 

* * *

 

“What am I here to investigate?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

Two guards from the inside post guided Daud through the open gate, and down the long, dim hallway that led to the containment blocks. Water dripped from the pipes around them and thick cables ran along the ground, and old half-hearted attempts at mopping up blood stained the light stone floor.

“Honestly, me neither. Must be above my pay grade.” The first one chattered as he led the way. “It’s been real hush-hush since it happened. They just keep calling it ‘the incident.’”

They passed another guard post - scattered barricades - an arc pylon and an oil tank. Daud fell a pace behind and stole a glimpse at the high rafters, and Thomas and two other Whalers saluted down at him and disappeared.

“I thought Coldridge was equipped to deal with inmates,” Daud said.

“Yeah, well, it’s the funniest thing.” The guard clanked onto the landing through the open door ahead. “They took this lady in for questioning, and before they could get anything out of her - boom!” On _boom_ he mimed an explosion with his hands. “The whole place almost shook apart. Like an earthquake, or something.”

Daud listened on his way through the patch of gray, flat sunlight in the yard.

“Anyway, they locked the room after that and they won’t let anybody in…” the guard went on - “but I tell you what, I think it was black magic. She looked awfully witchy to me.”

“Come on.” The other guard interrupted him. “He doesn’t care about what you have to say.”

“He’s an _Overseer,_ you idiot. Black magic stuff is his job.” The first one scowled. “They wouldn’t’ve called him in in the first place if they didn’t think I may be right.”

As they got nearer to the cellblocks a buzz began to ring in Daud’s ears, and as they passed through the next doorway it became a roar - shouting, swearing, rattling the bars, banging against the concrete walls. The more they walked the louder he heard it, so many voices he couldn’t pick one out, and mangy rat rat skittered through a puddle and through a ventilation duct on the floor…

But soon they stopped in front of a solid, ordinary-looking door, draped on either side with more of the Lord Regent’s red flags.

“All right, we’ll wait for you out here.” The guard fished through his keyring. “Open the door if you need something, we can’t hear nothing otherwise.” At last he found the right one and twisted it in the lock. “And, uh, try to make it quick, will you? This whole thing creeps me out.”

Daud nodded.

“All right.” The guard pushed the door open with a long, grating creak. “Go on in.”

Daud stepped inside and watched the door close behind him with the same noise, and before he moved he counted off one second… two… with taps on the butt of his palm. He knocked on one side of the door frame… then the other… and listened for a difference in the pitch of the sound…

Actually soundproof. Good.

So he turned around.

When he saw what lay before him, he gaped under his hood. Most of the ceiling had caved in and tree roots smashed through the floor tiles, gnarled and giant and curling up the pillars and the walls - and the charred remains of a young woman lay strapped into the interrogation chair.

Daud cringed at the smell. Death. Stale death. Nothing he could do to air it out. So he stumbled over one root, then another, and leaned in toward the corpse - and his ears rang with the unmistakable deep, low whale-song of the Void.

“Thomas?”

A pause, then Thomas answered, _“Are you in?”_

“We’ve got a problem.” Daud circled the chair. “This is Delilah’s work.”

_“What’s one of her witches doing in Coldridge?”_

“Your guess is as good as mine.” A twig snapped under Daud’s toe, and he eyed the bloody footrests. “But it proves we were right. She has to be marked. This makes everything worse.”

_“Remember what you told me. We’re just here for Lizzy Stride.”_

Daud slunk away from the chair, and the whale-song faded.

“Right.”

A bright green leaf stood out from the pillar beside him, and he ran his glove up its thin branch… and it crumbled into ash when he touched it between his finger and thumb. He drew back and started to make his way to the desk on the other side, across peaks and valleys of brambles and branches and thorny rosebuds…

Until he heard the door handle squeak.

Daud stood statue-still. The door opened an inch… another, two more, _Outsider’s blood,_ the _sound -_ and came to rest just open enough for a stripe of light to spill through.

“Hey, uh… brother?”

Daud cleared his throat.

“Yes?”

“Be honest…” the guard’s voice bounced off the walls - “are you gonna be all right in there by yourself?”

“The witch is dead.” Daud answered as brusquely as he could. “I’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.” The guard made a shuffling sound. “We’re gonna pop out for a smoke. We don’t get paid enough for this Outsider shit.”

And once again the door heaved closed.

Daud seized his chance. He bounded over the cracked cement and fell to his knees beside the desk, and groped along the grooves of the drawers to pull them open in vain. When he felt a lock he tore his mask off and snatched a lockpick from inside the hood, and fiddled… and tweaked… a little more, a little more… and with a last twitch it clicked and sprang and he shoved the pick back in his clothes.

_Phew._

He took a breath of the sharp air and tugged on the deep bottom drawer. Rows and rows of documents streamed out before him, with the sinister Coldridge masthead - lining all the way to the back, sorted by year and month and name.

“Thomas?” Daud picked over a few in the middle. “I think I found the interrogation logs.”

_“Anything on Lizzy?”_

“Not yet. But these go back for years.” Daud flipped through one yellowed paper dossier after the next. _Slackjaw. Black Sally. Bluehand Jane. Mortimer Hat._ “Everyone big in the underworld since Euhorn Kaldwin is in here.”

_“Do they have the cell numbers on them?”_

“Looks like some of them do.” Daud kept searching. _Double murder. Racketeering. Gang connections. Piracy._ “If I can find her documents, maybe I can…” _Mutiny - embezzlement -_ “tell you which one…”

_Infanticide -_

What?

The corner of an old coffee-stained note card caught Daud’s eye. He thumbed back and stuck his fingers between the labeled sheets of paperboard - and pulled the note card out and tilted it toward the light.

_Rebecca Haight, 49 y.o. of 33 Capstan Street. Relative to violation of the Third Stricture through infanticide, by the use of herbalism and witchcraft to purge her patients’ wombs._

Daud furrowed his brow.

“Thomas?”

_“Yes?”_

Daud took another good, hard look at the name…

“Have you heard of a Rebecca Haight?”

 _“No.”_ Thomas paused. _“Should I?”_

“No,” Daud muttered and turned the card over. “I guess I wouldn’t expect you to…”

_“Is that some alias Stride’s been using?”_

“No… no, I guess not.” Daud checked the date. “This is from twelve years ago. Never mind. I’ll keep looking.”

_“Uh… all right…”_

But instead of looking back in the drawer, Daud turned the card over and read on.

_23 Month of High Cold: Subject on hunger strike. Attempts to extract confession still unsuccessful, as subject continues to deny validity of the charge. Subject insists she is a legitimate midwife and cites high miscarriage rates in lower class, and protests accusations of witchcraft as without evidence._

_Request to transfer inmates around her cell. Becoming sympathetic to her cause._

_“Daud?”_ Thomas cut back in. _“I made it up to the guard post. Lizzy Stride is in Cell A21, it says so here in the logbook.”_

But Daud kept reading…

_28 Month of High Cold: Subject force-fed. Still somehow strong enough to resist, but malnourished, wearing down. Subject tried today for third time to engage interrogator in moral debate, and was removed from chamber and whipped before she lost consciousness._

_Subject mentioned a daughter, 18 years old. Whereabouts unknown._

Daud read it again. And he remembered. And he connected the dots. And a sudden, bitter recognition twinged deep in his chest.

 _“Daud?”_ Thomas called through the Void again. _“Is something wrong?”_

Daud nudged the drawer closed before he got to his feet - and after a moment’s hesitation he slipped the note card up his sleeve.

“No.”


	18. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for reproductive issues and implied sexual content.

 

 

* * *

 

“You know the drill. Go lie down. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Portia kicked her slippers off, first the right foot, then the left, and climbed onto the long stone massage table in the middle of the private steam room. A heavy warmth rose from the green-lit pool as Joanna lay out a towel and a handful of tools, and once she’d inspected them and found them clean she turned on the fountain sink.

Betty shut the door. “I take it you didn’t tell Prudence you’re using one of the client rooms for this.”

“Of course not. I don’t give a damn. I’m not doing these procedures upstairs.” Joanna soaped the fronts and backs of her hands. “It’s not freezing cold down here. They can actually relax. The light’s a little intimate, I guess, but that’s what the lamp is for.” Then her knuckles, then the webbed spaces in between her finger joints. “Portia, can you turn that on for me?”

Portia bent over and lit the flame, and Betty took a good, long look at what Joanna had brought. A clear bottle, a tape measure, and Joanna’s strange device - a wooden handle and a screw and three long, cold metal limbs.

“What’s she in for this time?” Betty asked.

“A little of everything.” Joanna lathered around both her wrists. “I’ll do her pulse, her breasts, her stomach. Get a quick look and feel inside.”

“Didn’t you just do that?”

“I want to do it every few weeks.” Joanna scrubbed all the way up to her forearms, then rinsed. “I need to watch her very carefully. Make sure nothing goes wrong. Between the plague and being a courtesan, we’ve got a lot to worry about.”

Portia braced herself on her elbows, then carefully lay down, and Betty peeked over Joanna’s shoulder.

“How far along is she now?”

“About twelve weeks. The womb’s lifting, and… Portia, have your eyes been blurry?”

Portia frowned. “Sort of…”

“It’s normal.” Joanna dried off on a second towel and brought it over to the table. “We never see courtesans at twelve weeks. I always take care of it before then. But Portia’s going all the way up to nine months and then hopefully birth, so it’d be a good learning experience if you want to stick around.”

“Portia, sweetie?” Betty waved to her. “Do you mind if I stay and watch?”

“Uh…” Portia thought about it, then - “no. We’re all friends here, I guess.”

Portia fidgeted around on the table, then settled down when her neck found the right spot. Joanna felt the pulse in Portia’s wrist and again for a moment on her throat, and motioned for her to disrobe from the waist up.

“Did I tell you?” Portia sat up just enough to wriggle out of her camisole. “Daniel brought me flowers the other day.”

Betty scratched at her scalp. “Really?”

“Well, they’re just some little bellflowers. But it’s the thought that counts.” Portia unhooked her bra and slipped it off, then set it aside. “I didn’t know anything grew in this city these days.”

“Sure, plenty grows.” Betty leaned back against the wall. “Just nothing pretty.”

Joanna lifted Portia’s arm and tucked it behind her head, and felt her breast in a quick, firm circle, from the outside moving in.

“What about you, Betty?”

Betty looked up from the floor. “‘What about me’ what?”

Joanna gave the nipple a quick pinch, then moved to the other. “Have you ever had a client like that?”

“Like Portia’s friend Daniel?”

“Something like that.”

“I don’t know.” Betty picked at her cuticles. “Would I remember? That’s the real question. I see so many of them every day.”

Joanna pushed softly at Portia’s sides. “I know. Sometimes they start to run together in my head, too.”

“Bunting’s neighbor came by a couple of times. He was all right, you know, nothing gross. I like the ones I don’t have to touch better, but, eh.” She shrugged. “I’ve had worse. And there’s the North End dentist, he’s not… well, he’s not so bad…”

“Not like that.” Joanna unrolled the tape measure and stretched it over Portia’s abdomen. “I mean someone you really liked spending time with. Someone who made your job easier.”

“Oh.” Betty cupped her hand over her chin. “Well…”

“All right, dear.” Joanna tapped Portia’s knee. “Go ahead and open up.”

Portia nodded and bent her knees, then scooted her heels apart. Joanna edged around to the end of the table and hiked up Portia’s skirt, and gave her palms one last good rub to warm them…

“You know, now that you mention it,” Betty chimed back in…

“Huh?”

“There was one, maybe five years ago.”

“Portia, I’m going to touch you in a minute.” Joanna popped open the clear bottle and oiled her fingers. “Sorry, keep talking.”

“I can’t even think what he told me to call him. I know it was something unusual.” Betty wandered over to the side of the table and peeked over Portia’s thigh. “I know, you’d think he must not have been very special if I forgot. But he was a boat captain, and really handsome, with this… dark skin and these dark eyes, and…” she cut herself off - “wait a minute, what are you looking for?”

“The usual.” Joanna drew her fingers out from between Portia’s legs. “You know how it is. I like to check every time anyway.”

“Sure. Sure.” Betty kept talking. “So… he came again. And a third time. And it got to be a habit for a while. I didn’t kiss him or anything, but you know, it was kind of fun.”

“That’s funny.” Joanna poked around once more. “I don’t remember him.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell anybody about him.” Betty grinned a rueful grin. “I think he was kind of embarrassed that he had to come to girls like us. Always polite. Never asked for something that didn’t have a price on it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Even the man in the red coat does that.” Joanna took the limbed device off the table’s edge. “All right, now, Portia, brace yourself. It’s this thing.” She held it up. “It might be cold.”

Portia buttoned her lip. Joanna swabbed some oil on the device, and held it tight and angled it up…

“Now you want to slick this first… and go slow… and be gentle with it,” she murmured. “They’ve already got enough unpleasant things shoved in there all day.”

Betty observed in silence, her eyes wide and her interest piqued. Joanna twisted the screw once, twice - Portia made an uncomfortable noise and tensed her feet…

“You holding up there?” Joanna asked.

“Uh-huh…”

Betty peered in closer. “Is it supposed to be a little blue?”

“That’s right.” Joanna peered in with her. “It’s just a way to confirm what we already know.”

Portia relaxed into the device and let her feet go flat. Joanna took one last look-over before she unlocked it and loosened the screw, and eased it out an inch at a time and set it on the towel by the lamp.

“Betty?” Portia spoke up.

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you two end up together?”

“Who, me and that sea captain?”

“That’s right.”

“He sailed to… Tyvia, I think. I never heard from him again.” Betty backed away to give Portia some space. “It’s just as well. He would’ve gotten married, or something, and it would’ve ended anyway.”

Portia folded her arms over her ribs. “He could’ve married _you,_ couldn’t he?”

“Me?” Betty broke into an awkward laugh. “Of course not. It was good while I had it, but I mean, you know, it… it didn’t work like that.”

“All right, one more,” Joanna breathed, and slid her first two fingers back in…

“But if he’d asked you.” Portia pursued it. “Do you think you’d give this up?”

“Ugh. Outsider’s eyes, no.” Betty cringed. “It’s so creepy when they do that. ‘Would you give it up for me?’ ‘Would you leave the Cat for me?’ Like out of all the men I see every day, they’re gonna be different. They’re special.” She draped her forearms on the edge of the sink. “Why is it always the bland ones who think they’re so special?”

Joanna palpated Portia’s stomach with her unoccupied hand, her eyes suddenly distant and her voice suddenly soft. “I don’t know…”

Betty quirked her eyebrows.

“Jo? Are you all right?”

Joanna blinked, disoriented, at Betty, then Portia…

“What?”

“You just got quiet all of a sudden.”

Joanna pulled away and blinked again, between one… then the other…

“Oh.”

 

* * *

 

“So she looks me straight in the eye… and grabs me by my coat…” the lord on the parlor couch nearly spilled his lowball glass - “and says, ‘if you don’t stop… going to that _den of adultery,_ I can never show my face again!’”

He wiped down his purple waistcoat and slurred and yawned and rambled on, and the man around the other side mumbled in his sleep. Joanna nursed her weak drink and tucked her chin out of the light, and let the darkness hide her eye-rolling and her disapproving looks.

“I mean, the nerve! She had the… nerve… to tell me what to do!” He bashed his elbow into the sculpted arm of the couch. “She doesn’t love me. And I’m… I tell you, I’ll be _damned,_ I’m not going to listen to her.” He took another desperate swill. “I have to… do what’s best for me. That’s right. I can’t let her manipulate me like this.” He finger-jabbed into the wood. “Damn country-girl morality, quoting the Strictures… fuck the Strictures! I have _needs.”_ Another sip. “Petty little rules for petty little people. With… petty little minds.”

Joanna twirled her glass stem and fought the urge to slap his face.

“So here I am, I guess… back here and… telling you about it.” The lord swatted in front of himself. “Instead of going to that Boyle party like everybody else.” He polished off his drink. “‘Twice removed from the Perths,’ my ass. She’s just a social-climbing cheat.”

“All right.” Joanna swept the lowball out of reach and the coins behind herself, into the pocket hidden on the inside of her bustle. “I think you’ve had enough.”

“I- hey…” he stammered after her as she left - “where are you going?”

Joanna set their glasses down on the nearby and hurried out of his line of sight, and when she thought she’d lost him she slowed down to a safe, careful walk. She stepped over shoes - and decorative pillows - and spent matches and dropped coins - and saw men sleeping, pawing at the girls, sighing and dreaming from their drinks and pipes - until she spied a tall, blond Watch guard in the shadow of a drape, propped up on the wall and laughing with the girl at his side.

 _Portia? And is that… is that Daniel?_ She sighed. _Who else?_ Portia had loosened her cincher, she noticed, and covered her stomach with her folded arms - big enough for Joanna to tell, but not enough for him.

As she stood and watched, something hit her. She’d never seen Daniel’s face before. But before she could look, she smelled a cigarette - and filled with dread, and turned around - and saw Prudence smoking in her usual nook, eavesdropping on the alcove next to her.

“Prudence?” Joanna began as politely as she could. “Do I have anyone else tonight?”

“I thought you kept your own appointments.”

“I do.” Joanna itched with hope. “But no one’s… come in, or anything?”

Prudence arched her eyebrows and took a long, unamused drag. “No.”

“Oh.” Joanna swallowed her disappointment. “All right. Well, thank you.”

“You look tired,” Prudence sniped after her as Joanna walked away. “Put yourself to bed.”

 

* * *

 

Joanna twisted the squeaky hot-water tap on her porcelain tub, and as the water hit the bottom with a hollow splash she reached down and plugged the drain.

She untied her robe and hung it up beside the next day’s clothes, and sank onto the cushion of her vanity chair as colors danced on her screen from the window. White - yellow gold - then blue, and vibrant red - as fireworks burst over the Boyle Mansion and glimmered in the river below.

And they left a dim reflection in the mirror as Joanna smeared her makeup off. Her rouge off. Her mascara off. Her eyebrow pencil off. Her lipstick came off in a red smudge on the white rag from her drawer - and when she heard the tub filling, she rushed back and turned it off before it could overflow.

She stood on the furry bathmat and wriggled out of her clothes. Her boots off. Her bustle off. Her garters off. Her stockings off. And her camisole, and her drawers, as they piled around her feet - with the plain and knock-kneed candor of a woman undressing where no one could watch.

 

* * *

 

And in the deep blue twilight that blanketed Drapers Ward, Daud cut a path through the fog and the Dead Eels that crowded the filthy docks.

They pushed and shoved to make way for each other, a swarm of deep-sea tattoos and shorn sleeves, and they argued and broke open crates of contraband and spat on the ground. The Undine’s bell clanged and they signaled to each other as they boarded the riverboat, counting off the rest of their ill-gotten goods before they hoisted them up.

And Lizzy Stride ran after him, her shorn hair blowing in the wind, barefoot and gnashing her pointed teeth.

“You left Wakefield _alive?!”_

Daud didn’t respond.

Lizzy tried again, louder. “I told you to _kill_ him!”

“You told me to get you your boat.”

“Whatever happened to ‘The Knife of Dunwall?!’” Lizzy jostled into one of her lieutenants. “Some shitty assassin you are!”

“He’s blacked out in the cargo hold,” Daud said. “Do whatever you want.”

“Oh, I will.” Lizzy’s eyes lit up with a wicked, creative glint. “I will.”

Someone called Lizzy’s name in the distance, and she turned on her heel and dashed away. Daud slowed to a stop amid the flurry of Whalers and thugs, and rubbed his hands and blew into them to stave off the wet Wrenhaven cold.

And before he could pull away, he caught a whiff of jasmine oil - faint, but unmistakeable, on the tip of his thick, dark glove.

 

* * *

 

Joanna lowered herself into her bath one careful inch at a time, and the heat sent a shiver through her bones before she slid in shoulder-deep.

She yawned and stuck her arms out of the suds to soap up her washcloth. No powders. No potions. Just a good castile, and a foam to take the dead skin off. More fireworks crackled across the river, and she swabbed down one armpit - then the next - and wrung it out over the water like a washerwoman bored with her job.

And she rubbed the ends of the cloth together, and scooped water onto her chest - and as she leaned back, she began to imagine a dark-haired head under her chin.

Until something skittered and scratched on the glass outside her window.

Joanna bolted upright and lifted herself halfway out of the tub, and glanced over her shoulder and out to her balcony… _ugh._ No one. Just a rat. So she sighed, and her shoulders drooped as she retreated back into the tub, and she stuck her leg into the frigid air and fished the washcloth out.

And as she scrubbed her foot, she envisioned the head tilting, and brushing its nose against her ear.

 _Come on._ She washed over her ankle and up her calf. _Don’t be ridiculous._

But she imagined the weight of ribs upon her, and two solid arms around her back, and a pair of thin lips sucking, kissing, breathing heavy against her throat.

Joanna gulped and blinked down at the washcloth lather. Her pulse quickened. Her stomach tensed. An old and aching feeling found its way down to her toes, and slowly - gently - hesitating every step of the way - she brushed her cheek with her own fingers and dragged them down her own slim neck.

It felt good. So she kept going, down to her collarbone. She tickled the underside of her breast and imagined a wide, callused palm, and she remembered the smell - hair wax and leather, and a note of sweat from a day’s work done. She squirmed and stuck her other foot up, but it slipped back in, and her mouth curled into her teeth and flushed when she let it back out.

And in her mind she heard a litany of beaten, husky groans - and in her favorite soft, obedient voice, _yes, ma’am, yes, Jo._

So she propped up her free arm. She draped the washcloth over the side of the tub. And her eyelids fluttered shut as her hand sank beneath the water, to the depths below.


	19. Chapter 18

 

 

* * *

 

“Of all the sewers in all the districts for all the gangs in this rathole town…”

_“Is something the matter down there, Daud?”_

Daud grumbled, “No.”

Far away from the Golden Cat in the belly of Drapers Ward, Daud prowled through the sewer tunnels amid the reeds and stink and mud. The filmy water sloshed beneath him and trickled through cracks in the walls, and his heels clicked on the concrete as he searched for a sign - _anything_ \- to lead him to the control station.

_“Sir, are you sure about that?”_

“It’s nothing.”

_“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”_

“The minute we put Wakefield out of business and get our hands on Lizzy’s boat, its engine coil goes missing. That’s not a coincidence.” A piece of green carapace crackled under Daud’s foot. “Someone knows we’re about to leave for Brigmore, and they’re slowing us down. I’m tired of it.”

_“The Hatters said they stole it when their watermill stopped working…”_

“I’m not convinced.” Daud side-snuck up the steps. “Why did it break down in the first place? Delilah could still be involved.”

_“But why would she play with her food like that? Why not try to stop us once and for all?”_

“Arrogance.” Daud wiped the grime off his fingers. “The mark brings it out in people.”

Garbage floated under the footbridge. A clump of algae. An empty jar…

“This is ridiculous.” Daud peeked through the bars to the sunlight on the other side. “There’s got to be another like it in a city the size of Dunwall.”

_“I sent scouts up and down the waterfront and to the Greaves Refinery. Lizzy’s right. There’s nothing else. We need this one.”_

“Damn.”

Daud eased himself through the opening of the passage by the _No Trespassing_ sign, and tugged at the boards blocking him - _heave!_ \- until they broke away and he clambered through. Steam puffed up from the grates. Air bubbles groaned in the pipes. When he emerged on the other side he found a sewer worker on the ground - fresh-dead, stained with plague signs and mollusk acid on his clothes - and his limp arm in tantalizing reach of a river krust pearl.

Daud covered his nose and mouth with his glove and plucked the pearl off the damp wood. Smooth. Round. The size of a guinea egg. Good money. He polished it with his thumb and tucked it into his breast pocket.

And as he eased himself between the body and the generator beside it, he heard… a voice?

_“Toby…”_

_“Daud?”_ Thomas piped up.

“Quiet.” Daud bent low. “I hear someone.”

He squeezed through the narrow crawlspace and surfaced in some kind of hub, cavernous and foul and dappled with eerie green-gray light. Hollow echoes resonated in the cisterns above, and a young beggar roamed the center platform and called -

_“Toby? Toby…”_

Daud hugged the shadows.

_“Toby? Where are you…?”_

Daud inched close enough to see her better. Plague survivor rags. Dirty brown hair. Dirt and dried blood on her knees and elbows, and holes in her mismatched shoes - and he came a little closer - a crown of roses on her head…

“You there, sir!” She hurried to the edge and shouted at him. “Come up here, please! I need your help…”

Daud sheathed his sword in his belt, but armed his wristbow - and climbed the harrowing stairs to meet her - step - by cautious step.

“Please, sir, please…”

“What are you doing down here?”

“I’m looking for my son, sir.” She looked Daud up, down, every which way, and answered in an accent thick with the Gristol countryside. “He’s not well and he was playing near here, and I’m afraid he’s fallen in…”

Daud spotted strange blue veins snaking up the side of her throat.

“He’s a little boy, hip-high on you maybe, and towheaded, with light eyes,” the woman explained - “and he’s got a gray sweater and dark blue trousers. Have you seen him?”

“No…”

“Oh. Well… well, will you help me look for him? You see, I can’t walk so good…”

As she spoke Daud noticed her holding her right forearm behind her back. He tipped his head and caught a glimpse of a leaf peeking out from her torn sleeve - and thorns and a thick green stem growing out of her mottled wrist.

“Sir? Can you hear me?”

Daud squinted.

“What’s the matter with your arm?”

“What?” She moved it further back. “N-nothing.”

Daud grasped for it. “Let me see it…”

“Don’t touch me!” She jerked away. “Stop!”

But before she could escape Daud grabbed her with all his strength, and vaulted her halfway over the railing and pinned her under his weight. A dagger with a rose-carved hilt fell out of her clothes, and she winced at the loud, harsh _chink!_ when it hit the floor.

“You’re trying to get between me and that engine coil, aren’t you?”

The witch writhed under him.

“You’re trying to stall me. Why?” Daud tightened his fists. “What does Delilah need time to do?”

“You couldn’t just take the easy way out, could you?”

 _“Tell_ me.”

The witch scraped her toes back and forth in vain. “Stop trying to get involved!”

Daud twisted her arm at an oblique angle up her back…

 _“Agh!”_ The witch cried, and one of the roses tumbled out of her hair. “Timsh was just her warming up! She works in the shadows… eyes looking through eyes, and dreamless sleep…”

Daud shoved her an inch further over the edge. “Stop wasting my time…”

“Wait!”

Another inch…

“Wait, I said wait! Listen!” The witch dropped to an angry whisper. “There’s an ambush behind the gate.”

Daud tilted in closer…

“Two others, waiting for me to call… you can sneak by if you’re fast enough.”

Daud cautiously loosened his grip on her shirt.

“From there it’s a straight path down the tunnels, until you come to a metal door.” The witch strained the muscles in her neck. “Crawl through it to get to the water station. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

Daud screwed up his eyes in disbelief…

“You let me go, we never saw each other.” The witch glared straight at him. “That’s the best I can do.”

And Daud let her slide off the rail and crumple to the ground.

“What’s your angle here?”

“Delilah sent me to kill you down here, before you could fix the boat.” The witch struggled to her feet. “But I worked the Cat before she found me. I know who you are.”

The fighting strength fell out of Daud’s limbs.

“Just this once.” She started backward down the stairs. “For Jo.”

And Daud watched without moving or making a sound as the witch hobbled away - under the cisterns and through the passage where she vanished to parts unknown.

 

* * *

 

_“Hey, have you been down on the first floor lately?”_

_“Nobody has. Why?”_

Daud shed his clothes onto his bedsheets - his coat, his gloves, his shirt - and poured water into his washbowl in a harried clatter of china and wood. Two young Whalers dawdled outside his door and talked loud enough for him to hear, their voices rising and falling as they strolled up and down the hall.

_“I just left some old gear down there maybe a month or two ago. I was hoping to get down there and find it, but… I guess not.”_

_“Well, I hope it’s nothing you’d miss too much. The whole level’s destroyed. Even parts of the one above it are caving in now. Can’t walk anywhere in peace.”_

A bird honked from Jessamine’s crown. Daud bent over and splashed his face, and winced as the freezing water dripped off his eyelashes and nose.

_“Does Daud know?”_

_“I dunno. Does he? Go ask him.”_

_“I don’t know about that…”_

_“What’s the matter? You scared of him? Somebody’s gotta tell him sometime. I swear, this place is gonna fall down and take all of us with it, and if he doesn’t find us a new hideout soon, I’ll start looking myself.”_

Daud scrubbed his chest and wrists and over the back of his neck, working the leftover sewer stink out of his skin.

_“Good luck if you do. It’s getting scary out there. There’s been another one.”_

_“Really? Who?”_

_“Waverly Boyle.”_

_“What?!”_

Daud yanked an old towel off his shelf and dried himself like a dirty floor. His hairline. Behind his ears. His collarbone. Under his arms.

_“That’s what I heard. Went missing after her party last night. Somebody saw her go into the cellar, and she just… vanished. Never came back up.”_

The pearl fell out of Daud’s coat and rolled across his pillow, and he scooped it up and knelt by his trunk and groped along the underside. Further up - a little left - _there!_ He found the spring, and opened the lid and shoved his clothes aside - revealing a compartment lined with leather wallets and loose change and gold ingots.

_“Why would- well, no, that’s a stupid question. A lot of people hate the Boyles. But Waverly? Seriously? I thought she was the normal one.”_

_“You’ve got to be kidding. Waverly was the Lord Regent’s mistress. All that funding for the army and the City Watch? That was her - and there was probably some of her money in what Daud got paid for the empress.”_

Daud tossed the pearl in and shut the compartment and spread his clothes back into place.

_“This is starting to make my skin crawl.”_

_“I agree. It’s getting to be too much. Campbell, the twins, now Lady Boyle… someone’s closing in on Burrows. I can feel it.”_

Daud threw on a fresh shirt as he stomped down the stairs, and fumbled with the buttons as he reached the bottom and circled his desk. Among the cleaned-up papers a book lay open to an annotated map - _The Isle of Serkonos - Cullero, the tourist hub - Karnaca, Jewel of the South._

And as he wrested his cuffs into place, Thomas appeared by the windows.

“Sir.” He bowed. “Lizzy’s just finished reinstalling the engine coil.”

“Good.” Daud rearranged his hair. “Nobody gave you any trouble?”

“No. Not even the Hatters. Seems you calmed things down, at least for a while.”

Daud spied a green glass bottle next to his audiograph machine, and uncorked it - and sniffed it - cologne? - and shook it back and forth - and tamped the mouth against his palm and rubbed the last dregs onto his throat.

“We can leave at sunset or at midnight,” Thomas explained. “That’s when they change the guard. We won’t be able to slip past the quarantine otherwise. Which one?”

Daud’s mind drifted…

“Daud? Were you going somewhere?”

“Midnight.” Daud shut the book with a hard _thwap._ “There’s someone I need to visit first.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, uh… come in. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

An unseasonable warmth wafted through Joanna’s balcony doors, and she flitted to and fro, bundling clothes like a restless bird. Daud stood by her standing coat rack and pondered whether to hang up his belts, on the left hook, like always.

“I didn’t either. But I’m short on time.”

“Never a dull moment with you…”

Daud took a discreet whiff inside his collar. _Almost faded. Damn. Well, at least not sewage._ He peeked over his shoulder at Joanna as she passed in and out from behind her screen, in a black robe with a marabou collar that he’d never seen before.

“Anyway, you’re here now. Come in. I hope you don’t mind the fresh air.” Joanna bent over the couch arm and picked up an old, limp bustle. “This place gets a smell to it sometimes. I want to clear it out while it’s not so cold.”

Daud rolled one of his belt buckles between his fingertips, and listened to the soft jingle before he asked…

“Would you remember a courtesan who worked here not long ago and left?”

“I remember all of them. Which one?”

“I’m not sure.” Daud wandered over to Joanna’s oil cabinet and studied the peonies. “Dark hair. Pale eyes. Skinny. Sort of drawn.”

“Sounds like a lot of the girls here. Sounds like me,” Joanna said. “Why?”

“I had the pleasure of meeting one in Drapers Ward this afternoon.” Daud reached out to one of the blossoms and felt the crepey petals through his glove. “Charming woman. Tried to kill me.”

“What?!”

“Guess Delilah’s coven was waiting to catch her when she fell out of your line of work.” Daud drew his hand away. “Seemed to think well of you, though, because she let me go on your account. ‘Just this once, for Jo,’ she said.”

“Goodness. Well, I’m glad you’re not hurt.” Joanna gave him an impish look. “I mean, your face, you know, it doesn’t need anything else to happen to it.”

“I know a Dead Eel down in Drapers Ward that would disagree with you.” Daud busied himself with the loose pull on the cabinet drawer. “When I came back from the Hatters’ mill he invited me to sit in his lap.”

“Come on. You’re just mad he thought you were pretty enough to be the one doing the sitting.” Joanna gathered up some pairs of drawers with pilling lace. “A year ago, you would’ve done it.”

“If he brushed his teeth, I might.”

Joanna let out a dreamy sigh. “Oh, sweetheart. Never lower your standards for anyone.”

Daud took roving glances through the room like he needed something to talk about, and… settled on the clothes decorating the bed and couch.

“What’s all this?”

“This?” Joanna asked. “Oh, the clothes. Um… I just noticed things had been building up. You know, wearing out, or they were presents from clients I didn’t really like.” She folded a threadbare black slip over her forearm, and plucked at the spot on the neckline where the stitching had come undone. “I thought I’d wash them, maybe. See if anyone wants them downstairs. Seems an awful waste to just… keep so much."

“Hnh.”

Joanna knit her brow.

“Daud, are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“What?”

“You’re a little distant, is all.”

“Oh.” Daud stared into space. “I guess.”

“Go on. Fix yourself a drink.” Joanna disappeared behind her screen again. “I won’t even charge you for it if you take the whiskey. I’m trying to get rid of it.”

She rustled fabric and clinked buttons and clasps, and hung the slip over the screen’s trimmed edge. Daud mulled over her drink cart, then popped the top off one of the decanters…

“Tell me about someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” Daud filled one of the glasses. “Anyone. Like old times.”

“I don’t even know who there would be to talk about.” Joanna shuffled back out with reticent steps. “I mean, Campbell and the Pendletons are gone. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about what happened to them. Bunting had a bad session in the Silver Room, and he got upset and never came back.”

Daud lowered himself onto his favorite couch cushion and nudged a pink orphaned glove aside.

“Lord Brisby doesn’t come anymore either, but Lord Ramsey comes twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays, in the Gold Room, like clockwork. He’s just making us sick of him.” Joanna took her feather duster from the vanity table and swept around her jars and perfumes. “Wormwood and his nephew are dead from the plague, so it’s bad taste to tell that joke, and Lord Dawson’s left his wife and just… kind of lives here now.”

Daud drank in silence.

“That probably wasn’t what you were looking for.” Joanna turned her eyebrows up. “I’m sorry.”

Daud withdrew into himself to think, then -

“Is anyone really happy here?”

“No.” Joanna picked up one of the perfume bottles and fondled the grooves in the glass. “Well… I don’t know. The girls and I have our moments together, but the clients?” A shrug. “They’re a bunch of aging, powerful men. What do you expect?”

Daud didn’t answer.

“They’re lonely. They need validation. They’re trying to feel special, or young again.” Joanna wandered over to the patch of sun under the open doors. “I think most of the men who come here just want someone to listen to them.”

A longer silence lingered between them.

“Well, you’re a listener,” Daud said.

“You have a pleasant voice.”

The silence returned for a third time as a riverboat hummed at the dock outside, and it grew longer and longer until it became uncomfortable. A song playing on an audiograph in the Gold Room came in through the balcony - a plaintive one-two-three-count for piano and violin.

“Hey, I remember this song. My mother used to play it for me.” Joanna set the bottle and duster down. “One summer we saved enough to buy an audiograph machine, and this was the one they sold it with.” She leaned into the balcony doorway to listen. “Do you know it?”

“No.”

“No, I guess not, why would you. Can you at least dance?”

Daud’s chin withdrew into his collar. “No…”

“Oh, for… sake, you’re useless. All right. Get up.” Joanna dragged the panels of her screen aside, minding the hanging clothes. “You’ve got to have _some_ marketable skills. Just being gifted doesn’t count.”

“Are you going to turn me into a courtesan too?”

“I don’t know.” Joanna waved him over. “Maybe it is time for a change. The whole ‘killing’ thing isn’t working out.”

Daud did his best to look unpleasant, but he shuffled off the couch, to the spot in front of Joanna’s boots where she pointed and tapped her toe.

“Wait,” he said, “when you say ‘gifted…’”

“Shut _up.”_ Joanna snorted down an embarrassed laugh. “Don’t let it go to your head. Now, hold out your left hand…” she raised her arm - “and I’ll hold out my right.”

Daud raised his left arm like he thought her fingernails would bite.

“My other hand goes on your shoulder…” Joanna planted it there - “and yours goes on my waist.”

Daud gave her a wary eye.

 _“Daud.”_ Joanna sighed. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to put your hands on me.”

So he brought his hand down - and anchored it on the top of her bustle.

“Good.” Joanna settled into his grasp. “Now, I’ll just teach you something simple. Can you imagine a box?”

“Of course.”

“So you’re going to stay within that box shape, more or less.” Joanna scooted her toes back to make room for him to envision it. “You’re the lead, so start with your feet together - then step forward with your left…”

Daud stepped forward with his left -

“Now step to the diagonal with your right…”

Daud stepped to the diagonal with his right -

“And now step with your left foot to bring your feet together again. Perfect. Good. Now step _back_ with your right foot…”

Daud stepped backward with his right -

“And to the diagonal with your left…”

And to the diagonal with his left -

“And bring them together. Now you’re back where you started. Got that?”

Daud grunted.

“Oh, good enough.” Joanna hiked his wandering hand back up where it belonged. “I’m the follow, so I just do everything you do in reverse. Go ahead. Try what I taught you. We’ll do it once or twice.”

Daud followed the pattern she’d laid out for him. Hesitant the first time. Better the next. Forward, diagonal… forward? _No._ Forward, diagonal, together.

“See? You’ve got it.” Joanna kept going. “You’ve been doing sword footwork for years. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“This is completely different.”

“Only because you think it is.”

Daud veered to the left to avoid bumping into the bed. Forward, across, back - no, together - forward, across, together, back. Joanna slid through the motions in perfect time, and Daud stumbled to catch up.

“I bet the first time you came here you didn’t think I’d teach you how to dance.”

“I didn’t think you’d inform for me, either.”

“I mean, to be fair, neither did I.” Joanna relished holding his hand. “It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“Why’d you do it, anyway?”

“I told you. I wanted protection.”

“You tell me a lot of things.”

“All of which are true, you know.” Joanna guided his sinking arm back into place again. “I’ve never lied to you. Sometimes I just leave out the details. And I felt… afraid, I guess, for lack of a more flattering way to put it.” She coaxed his steps closer together to keep them the same length as hers. “I know. I spank the Knife of Dunwall. How could I be afraid of anything?”

“You’re the daughter of a dead mother. You know what there is to be afraid of.”

“And no matter how much something I am in here, I’m still nothing out there.” Joanna nudged him on one side to get him to turn her around. “Maybe someday it’ll be different. But for now…” she shrugged and pasted on a smile to brighten the mood - “well.”

Daud missed the next step and waited for the three-count to right himself. “Don’t sell yourself short. I can think of a lot of people who’d find your friendship worth the price.”

“Yes, but you’re the one who lets me spank you.”

Daud cracked a dry smile. “What are friends for?”

Slowly and surely they worked their way into a smooth pattern of steps, and Joanna studied the lines on his wrist to keep her attention off his face.

“Joanna, I know you’ve been giving my money back.”

Joanna turned bright red from her cheeks out to her ears.

“Oh.”

Daud led her through another awkward three-count.

“I’m sorry.” Joanna’s fingers fidgeted around his thumb. “I should’ve known you’d figure it out sometime.”

“Forget it.” Daud stared at their feet. “I don’t know what changes hands between us anymore.”

Daud missed the white instep of Joanna’s boot by an inch, and she pulled her lips into her mouth and swiped her foot out of the way.

“Joanna?”

Joanna steered him back on course. “What?”

“I’m going out tonight.”

“To where? Why?”

“Brigmore Manor. We’re leaving at midnight. To slip past the quarantines.” Daud paced back. “I don’t know what I’ll find there, or… if or when I’ll come back. But I thought you deserved to know.”

Joanna swallowed hard - and squeezed his hand.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“I won’t.”

They managed one step - two - and finished one set more - and when their feet came back together Joanna lay her head on his shoulder.

Daud tightened his hold on her waist. Joanna closed her eyes. They danced their halting waltz across the embroidered rug, as the sounds of song and drink and hollow laughter floated in through the scarlet walls.


	20. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for graphic depiction of a miscarriage. Serious discretion advised if this is a sensitive subject for you.

 

 

* * *

 

“Did you hear?” The girls asked each other between puffs of powder and hairbrush strokes, upstairs, downstairs -

“Did you hear?”

“Did you hear?”

“Did you hear about the Lord Regent?”

“Wait.” Someone tightened her cincher in the dormitory. “What happened with the Lord Regent?”

“You didn’t hear the loudspeakers last night?”

“No, I must’ve been sleeping. What’d they say?”

“What?!” Someone else burst out in the bathroom. “He had the empress killed?!”

“I know!” The girl next to her turned off the tap in the sink. “He just went on the loudspeaker system and started spilling everything. He said he started the plague, too.”

Beatrice fished a cloth out of the pond in the Steam Room. “How?!”

“He got these sick rats from Pandyssia and set them loose in the slums.” Genevieve swabbed down the bench. “He was trying to wipe out all the poor people!”

“I’ve never heard anything so barbaric in my life!”

“Where is he now?” One asked in the parlor -

“Hauled off to Coldridge!” One answered at the front desk -

“But who’s going to succeed him?” Loulia poured her client a drink in the Jade Room. “Dunwall can’t take a power vacuum for long.”

“I don’t know.” The client took a sip. “Some navy man. Havelock? Didn’t recognize the name.”

“What about Lady Emily, though?”

“Beats me. Nobody’s found her yet…”

And as Loulia replaced the crystal stopper Portia jostled into her side, and skittered through the doorway with a carpetbag in her arms.

“Portia?” Loulia looked up. “Is that…”

The client put his drink down. “Where are you going?”

“Hold on, I’ll be right back…”

And Loulia followed Portia out to the anteroom at the top of the stairs.

“Portia, what are you doing?” She asked. “What’s in that?”

“ _Shh!”_ Portia shushed her with wide, scared eyes. “Keep your voice down! I don’t want anyone to notice me.”

Loulia knit her brow. “Why?”

“Listen.” Portia kept checking over her shoulder. “I’m supposed to meet Daniel by the waterfront. This evening, after he gets off work.” She clutched the carpetbag to her chest. “He doesn’t know I’m bringing my things, he just wants to take me for an evening out. But I’ve got to get out of here, and I don’t know if I’ll get another chance.” Her nails scratched anxious tracks in the cloth. “I’m gonna sneak out now, while it’s busy, and go down and wait for him. By the time anyone notices, hopefully I’ll be long gone.”

“Asked you to- when did this happen?”

“Last week.”

“Are you crazy?!”

“Maybe! But I’ve gotta try.” The bag slipped a little, and Portia huffed and righted her grip. “Now come on. Help me. Take the bag down the service stairs and leave it by the VIP door. I’ll be down in a few minutes, it’ll be less suspicious…”

“Going somewhere?”

The carpetbag slid out of Portia’s grasp and hit the rug.

“I asked you a question.” Prudence floated in from the service entrance. “Are you _going_ somewhere?”

Portia stared at Prudence with a frightened-mouse expression for a long, long time - until slowly but surely, she stood up with a strong, straight back.

“That’s right.”

“Interesting.” Prudence circled her like a hawk and came to rest by the end table. “I don’t remember telling you you could go anywhere.”

“Well, I make my own decisions. I’m an adult, you see.”

Prudence shot a disdainful blink at her stomach. “You certainly think you are.”

“I’ve got Daniel now. My baby’s father. He’s going to do right by me.” Portia bent and picked the carpetbag up without breaking eye contact. “He’s asked me to go with him tonight, and I’m going to take him up on it. I’m going to leave, and be his wife, and I’m never looking back - and I hope to never see any of you or this terrible place again.”

“So you’re quitting.”

Portia’s hands shook. “You know what? Yes. I am.”

Betty and Violetta meandered over from the parlor, and they snuck in behind the statue with their ears pricked up…

“So.” Prudence’s eyebrows arched hairline-high. “Let me get this straight. You’re going to just walk out the door and I’m just going to let you go, and you’ll run into the arms of this…” she waved her fingers - “David…”

_“Daniel.”_

“And he’ll whisk you off to a better life.”

Portia gulped. “That’s right.”

“And you’re not even going to bother with the debt you owe me.”

Portia’s face clouded with fear again.

“What?”

“As of this month, you owe me a deficit of 580 coins. Your services rendered, your number of clients, and your profit margin don’t add up.” Prudence counted off on her fingertips, _services - clients - profit._ “You’ve been taking someone without payment. And I think we both know which one.”

“I told you she would notice,” Violetta mumbled…

Betty swatted at her. “Shut up…”

“All right, so I have.” Portia gripped the railing to keep herself strong. “I’ll pay some of it back to you every month, and _then_ I’ll leave. Are you satisfied?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re not in a good position to bargain with me.” Prudence stared Portia down and inched closer to her with every word. “You’re going to have a long time once that baby’s born where you can’t work. And with what the plague’s done to us, I’m not feeling generous with non-earning girls.” Closer… and closer… “This is the Cat, not a home for unwed mothers…”

“I don’t have to listen to that!”

Prudence ground to such a sudden stop her heels scraped the fibers in the rug.

“I’ve about had it with the way you talk to me and the other girls! The only one you don’t do it with is Jo, and I think it’s because you’re afraid of her.” Portia licked at her drying mouth. “But I bet you’d be afraid of us little ones, too, if we started speaking our minds! ‘Cause there’s an awful lot of us, and there’s only one of you.”

Betty grimaced and whispered, “Come on, Portia, don’t pick this fight…”

“Oh. I see. This is all Joanna’s fault.” Prudence’s hand grew tighter and tighter on the tail of her fur. “She’s filled you full of her stupid ideas. Well, I’m the one who puts a roof over your head! Not her!”

“It’s not stupid ideas, it’s me standing up for myself!” Portia grit her teeth as her knuckles went white. “Someone’s got to do it! Or no one ever will!”

Violetta cringed and bit her nails…

“Fine. If you’re going to act like a child, I’m going to treat you like one.” Prudence stomped forward, her arm outstretched. “Give me that bag.”

Portia swerved away and knocked Loulia aside. “No!”

Prudence grappled with her. “Portia…”

Portia ripped at Prudence’s fur. “Stop!”

And in their struggle Prudence shoved and Portia tripped, and sailed down, down every hard marble step of the great, winding main staircase.

Betty stifled a gasp. Loulia clenched her fists to her gut. Prudence retreated, her arms slack, her mouth agape, her eyes wild with horror and her fur molting onto the floor - and she stormed out before anyone could have the last word.

And Betty took a cautious look over the rail and saw Portia at the bottom of the stairs, the limp wrists, the bent hips, the limbs splayed across the lobby floor - and the growing pool of blood that began to seep from between her legs.

Betty’s heart hit her throat. She backed away, one step, two -

“Jo?” she called out, soft, unsure -

And her feet quickened and she whirled around and broke into a run and cried out,

_“Jo?!”_

 

* * *

 

“What’s going on?!”

Joanna raced up the service stairs with a retinue of girls in front and behind, in a thunder of frantic footsteps toward the dormitory floor.

“I… I- we…”

“Portia…”

“Use your words, dammit! _What’s going on?!”_

“Prudence and Portia got into a fight, and Prudence pushed her down the main stairs!” Betty shouted over the rest. “She- I- I think she passed out, and now she’s bleeding from between her legs!”

Joanna bounded toward the last room. “How much?!”

“I don’t know! A lot?!”

Joanna seized with shock and gasped on her way through the open door, and the rest of the girls knocked into each other behind her like pins. Portia lay half-cocked on the farthest bed, hand and foot hanging off the side - bruised bright red on her temple and hemorrhaging onto the sheet.

“Outsider’s eyes,” someone said behind her…

“What?” Said another.

“I… I just… Outsider’s eyes…”

Joanna ran past the locker and the mess of mattresses and hurled herself down by Portia’s side, and checked her over for signs of - what? Anything she could think of - _damn! Where to start?_ Her brow, feverish - her pupils, dilated - her pulse, racing - what else, _what else?!_

“Portia?” Joanna shook her. “Portia? Can you hear me?”

Portia’s head rolled to the side…

And Joanna’s face curled with hatred. “Prudence is going to pay for this…”

The girls swarmed around the bed, fidgeting and glancing amongst themselves…

“All right, help me move the bed out!” Joanna took hold of Portia’s ankle. “I need her all the way up.”

Beatrice grabbed the side of the iron footboard and groaned and grit her teeth. The bed swung out with a horrid creak and Loulia grabbed the other side, and as they hauled it out an inch at a time Joanna hoisted Portia’s legs up and apart - and revealed the blood had soaked through the rest of the bedding below.

Loulia turned green. “Oh, that’s bad…”

Beatrice wheezed. “She’s gonna die!”

“Hey.” Betty ducked in by Joanna’s side and spoke in a hush. “Don’t listen to them. What do you think’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” Joanna mumbled back. “I think the baby’s torn away.”

“Do we need to get Dr. Galvani?”

“He won’t make it in time…”

“I’ve got good legs. I can run.”

“No.” Joanna frowned with determination and gripped the side of the mattress. “This is my job.”

Betty chewed her lip - but nodded, and moved out of Joanna’s way - and Joanna strode into the center of the room, her voice booming and her posture straight.

“All right! Beatrice, boil water! Loulia, keep watching her pulse! Betty, go to my room and look under my bed and get the box of my mother’s tools - and Violetta, go down to the Steam Room and get all the towels you can find!”

“But…” Violetta fretted - “there are clients down there…”

“I don’t give a damn!” Joanna roared. “Everyone else, be ready to help me! We’ve got work to do!”

 

* * *

 

And as a strange yellow afternoon haze drifted over the Flooded District, Daud tore through his trunk and flung his clothes onto the top of his bed.

One shirt. Two shirts. One, two, three pairs of socks. He threw a pair of trousers and his shaving kit down beside a worn leather bag, and he sprang open his trunk compartment and wrapped his golden goods in an undershirt.

And he swooped down to his office level and raided the lockbox beside the crates, where dirty footprints marred the carpet and notebooks blanketed the floor and one of his short swords stuck out of the painting of Burrows like a last insult. He dug through pilfered papers and banknotes until he found a blank audiograph, and he brought it back to the machine on his desk and fed it through the mechanical teeth…

And a pair of his Whalers transversed in before he could switch it on.

“Sir!” They hurried to Daud’s side as he let go of the controls. “We found an unconscious man floating in the lower district.”

 

* * *

 

“How’s she doing?!”

Betty dashed back in with the box under her arm.

“Not good!” Joanna signaled for Beatrice to fetch more boiling water. “D’you find them?”

“I think so!”

The girls hovered as Betty stuffed the box into Joanna’s arms, fine and old and dusty and trimmed with cherry wood. Joanna blew off the dust and lay it on the mattress and flipped the latches and opened it up, and as she pulled out her device and a long curette the girls peered at the rows of tools with awe…

“Wait a minute.” Betty eyed the velvet lining, then the hole in the curette loop. “Isn’t that…”

“Yes. It is.” Joanna wriggled out of her sleeves. “And she’s going to die if I don’t.”

The top of her robe fell down around her and she tightened the tie at her waist, and dragged the nearby chair over and planted herself hard in its seat. Beatrice brought in the new bowl in a billow of steam, and sweat pricked at Portia’s pallid cheeks…

“Towel!” Joanna yelled -

“Jo, what’s going on? Say something!”

“Shut up! She’s trying to work!”

Portia’s breath grew short and shallow, and her heartbeat pounded against her ribs…

“Jo?” Betty started to lose her cool. “Is she supposed to breathing like that?!”

“No!” Joanna set the curette down. “She’s losing too much blood. She needs an infusion, or- or even surgery if this gets any worse, but we don’t have the tools, I- I’ve never done surgery, I can’t do any of that!”

“Well, we’ve got to do _something!”_ Betty begged. “Look at her! She’s gonna bleed out!”

Joanna froze.

 _Bleed out._ She thought about it - where had she…? _Bleed out… tastes like death,_ she heard Daud say… _but it’d keep them from bleeding out._

So her eyes flashed.

“Loulia!”

Loulia leaped to her feet. “Yes?”

“Go down to the parlor and get me a pot of coffee!”

“What?!”

“Trust me!” Joanna shot up from the chair and threw herself halfway out the door. “Everyone, go! Search all the cabinets! Look in the bathroom downstairs! I need powdered crystal and widow’s root! Powdered crystal and widow’s root!”

 

* * *

 

Daud waited with his hands behind his back - a Whaler on his left, a Whaler on his right - as their makeshift elevator creaked and rose and trails of light passed by his face.

The gears ground against each other and the rusty chains shook above their heads, and they said nothing to each other as they climbed higher and higher up the refinery floors. With a screech and sparks they came to a halt and the doors opened to a long gangplank, where another elevator rose up from the brown-green water, churning with corpses and hagfish and mud.

Daud strode out. The Whalers strode with him. A cold, wet wind ruffled their coats. A scout came up at his side and tapped his shoulder and opened the latch on a wooden box, and tried to show him a short, telescoping sword and the Lord Protector’s iron-and-wire skull mask.

But Daud’s boots clanked beneath him as he pressed on to the end - walking closer, closer, staring straight ahead, like a prisoner on his way to the gallows.

 

* * *

 

And Joanna sprinted down the hall with her robe train fanning behind her on the floor - her ears burning, her veins throbbing, nearly tripping on her own toes - and she bent halfway over the rail and bellowed down the stairwell -

“Where is it?! Come on!”

“Here! I found them both!” Betty bounded up with an armful of supplies. “Crystal and widow’s root, all ground up. Is that what you need?”

“That’s right!” Joanna rushed back inside. “Where did you find these?”

“Prudence’s office! We stole them out of her drawer.”

“Good!” Joanna dumped them across the desktop. “She ought to pitch in, shouldn’t she?” She filled the glass flask halfway with coffee and tapped in the crystal - then the root - and swirled them together until the liquid took on a pearly sheen.

“Have you ever used widow’s root?” The girls chattered…

“No, I don’t know what it does…”

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Loulia asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s our only shot!” Joanna corked the flask and shook it hard, then popped the cork back out. “Portia? Portia, are you awake at all?”

Loulia shrugged. “She moved a little when you were outside…”

“Come on, Portia.” Joanna swatted at Portia’s cheek, first softly, then harder. “Wake up!”

Portia’s eyelids fluttered…

“Portia, I need you to swallow something. Can you hear me now?”

Still no answer…

“Lift her head!”

Loulia heaved Portia up by the armpits and cupped the back of her head, and Joanna pinched Portia’s nose and poured the mixture down. Portia gagged and sputtered and a drop dribbled down her chin, but she swallowed the rest before sliding back down onto the pillow.

And Betty looked on from behind them, small and apprehensive. “Now what?”

 

* * *

 

“Good riddance to you, Hiram Burrows - you small, worried man…”

Daud sat alone at his desk with his forehead cradled in his hand, his leg fidgeting under the table, the ball of his boot tapping the floor. The audiograph machine cranked and dragged the punch card into its depths, and spit a volley of white paper squares as it recorded his voice.

“So many schemes you had, and so many contracts. How many people did I kill for you?”

The machine kept turning - and turning - and the squares began to pile by his elbow…

“None like the last… none like her.” Daud faltered, and his palm slipped down over his eyes and nose. “I’d give back all the coin if I could. No one should have to kill an empress.”

 

* * *

 

And Joanna wrung and dunked one of the spent towels in the hallway sink, splashing water over the side with her vigor as it billowed red.

“Jo!” Betty stumbled out and yanked at Joanna’s sleeve. “Jo, I think it’s slowing down!”

“What?!” Joanna dropped the towel. “Already?”

“I know!” Betty ushered her back inside. “What’d you say was in that widow’s root?”

“I didn’t know! I’ve never used it before!”

“Well, it- never mind, look!” Betty skidded out of the way as Joanna pushed through to the bed. “She’s only gone through one more towel since you gave it to her!”

Joanna elbowed Loulia away and pressed at Portia’s wrist, and then her throat. Portia’s breathing slowed and her frantic pulse began to even out…

“Towel!” Loulia hollered -

“Coming right up…”

And Joanna backed away and breathed, “Daud, you brilliant bastard…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” Joanna slammed herself back into her chair. “Come on, come on! Keep it coming! Make some more of that stuff, just to be safe!”

Violetta’s eyes bugged. “Did you cure her?”

“Not yet! But I can work with this!”

Beatrice dampened a washcloth and patted Portia’s hairline, and Betty grabbed the coffee and swilled more into the flask. Joanna scooted over to position herself closer to Portia’s legs, and from her mother’s box she drew out the first from the row of thin, metal sounds -

“All right, two of you, lift her ankles…”

Loulia and Violetta took their places -

“One of you, take her hand…”

Betty squeezed Portia’s palm -

“Portia, there’s nothing to numb you,” Joanna called out. “If you can hear me, I’m sorry…”

And as she raised the sounding rod, Betty whispered,

“Good luck.”

The girls watched and held their positions, and none of them dared to say a word. The sweat dried on Portia’s skin and her heart quieted in her chest, and the blue faded from her nails and the flush crept back into her cheeks - as Joanna worked until her fingers cramped and the light slipped over the chimney pots.

 

* * *

 

As the clock tower tolled across the river one of the parlor girls snuck upstairs, carrying an empty wine bottle and peering into the deserted hallway.

“Hello?”

No answer. Just incoherent noise in the farthest room. Footsteps? A creaking mattress? Somebody speaking… who?

“Hello? What’s going on up here?” She tried again. “We can hear you downstairs…”

And she heard a brief, startled silence, before -

_“Is someone there?”_

_“Think so. Should I take care of it?”_

_“No, no. Please. You sit down…”_

And Joanna trudged out, barefoot, robeless, with locks of her hair in cobwebs around her ears - and blood spilled down her drawers and camisole and smeared up both her arms.

And the girl squeaked and dropped the bottle, with a heavy glass _thud_ on the floor.

“Oh. Good. You’re still here. Listen… you can do something for me.” Joanna wiped at her falling hairpin with the bloodless spot on her wrist. “Go downstairs to the bathroom locker… and see if we have any laudanum.”

“Laudanum?” The girl scooped up the cracked bottle before it could roll away. “Jo, Outsider’s eyes, what happened? You look like you’ve killed someone.”

Joanna heaved herself like a bag of stones onto the chair by the sink, her feet apart and her forearms dangling from her knees.

“Portia’s very badly hurt. I want to make sure she gets some sleep.”

“Portia?” The girl clutched the neck of the bottle. “Is the baby gonna be all right?”

Joanna sighed from the deepest pit of her gut - and hung her head.

“Just go.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning came over Dunwall in a haze of soft gold-gray, and spots of cold, dim dawn began to appear on the stained floor.

The Wrenhaven ebbed and the Dead Counters changed their guard, and the last lights disappeared in the streaked windows of the slums. And Joanna sat slumped over in the same rickety chair at the end of the hall - drifting in and out of a heady, muffled world between awake and asleep.

Her feet ached. A draft snuck in where the cheap moulding had begun to crack. She heard a bell and the droning of an Overseer, carried on the wind up from the street - _restrict the wanton flesh! Truly, there is no quicker means by which a life can be upheaved…_

A dark arm shook her shoulder. “Hey…”

Joanna didn’t move…

Again. “Hey, Jo?”

So she squinted up at - Betty? - and tried to lift her head, and groaned when a tight, sharp pain shot through the - _Outsider’s blood,_ her _neck._

“Huh?”

“Were you out here all night?”

“Of course I was.” Joanna blinked the rheum out of her eyes. “Somebody had to be.”

 _What avail is the concourse of a prostitute?_ The Overseer went on…

“That was awfully kind of you.” Betty stuck her hands between her thighs for warmth and looked askance. “Some noble was after you at the front desk last night. I told him you weren’t around.”

Joanna mumbled a “thanks” into her lap.

“I guess I could’ve said you were sick, but… didn’t want him to think you had the plague.”

The Overseer kept reciting, and clanging, clanging his horrid bell. _And what is the fruit of such unions? Only sorrow is born…_

“Hey, uh, listen.” Betty tucked her hair behind her ear. “I think Portia might be coming around. Do you want to go in and talk to her?”

“Has anyone else yet?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. I…” Joanna gathered herself - “give me a minute to wake up. Then I’ll go in. I think I’d better. Before anyone else.”

 

* * *

 

So she tiptoed into the quiet bedroom while Betty waited in the hall, and came upon the remains of the afternoon like the aftermath of a war.

She saw towels on the mattresses. Towels in the locker. Towels on the floor. The basin still sat on the desk, its water gone cold hours ago. Long, strange shadows played on the walls as she approached the bed - and when she reached the footboard, Portia stirred and opened her eyes.

“Jo?” Portia cringed at the sudden brightness. “Is that you?”

“It’s me.”

Portia squirmed under her blanket. “Where am I? What time is it?”

“You’re upstairs at the Cat. It’s morning.”

“What?” Portia screwed up her eyes again. “Morning? It’s- tomorrow morning? How much have I missed?”

“You’ve only been out for about fourteen hours.” Joanna kept coming toward her. “But don’t try to move around too much. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

And like Joanna had poured the cold basin on her, Portia woke up all at once.

“Why not?”

“You had a terrible fight with Prudence. She pushed you down the main staircase.” Joanna scooted the nearby dressing chair up to the side of the bed. “You hit your head. You started bleeding…”

“I don’t remember any of this…”

“I don’t blame you,” Joanna said. “You were pretty in-and-out.”

Portia rubbed at her disheveled hair and groaned. “My stomach hurts…”

“Well, it was a close call. You really lost a lot of blood.” Joanna sat down and pulled the blanket up to Portia’s chin. “I can’t tell if you’ve broken anything, I’m sorry, but you had an injury inside. The girls got you a special tonic and we’re lucky that made it stop, because, I, uh… without it, I don’t know if you’d have pulled through.”

“Pulled through?” Portia frowned. “I- blood? Come on, Jo, tell me. What’s happening?”

“Portia…” Joanna tried to keep her tone gentle - “something went wrong.”

“Something went wrong, like _what?_ What are you talking about?” Portia suddenly became flustered. “Did…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish. “Is it…”

Joanna shook her head.

Portia’s nostrils flared. Her chin wrinkled. Her brow creased and her breath hitched, and her shoulders shuddered as her body did everything except cry.

“I should warn you, it… might not be fully over yet.” Joanna stuck the bedside cloth in the basin water and dabbed at Portia’s forehead. “You could have more blood for the next few days. You might cramp a little, or feel weak. There might be some things that are hard to look at. Just come to me. I’ll handle it.”

Portia made an anguished throat-fry noise…

“Portia…” Joanna started - “Portia, _no._ Shh. Listen.”

Portia blinked up at her as tears pooled in the corners of her eyes.

“Portia…” Joanna murmured - “You’re nineteen years old. And you are very strong.” She leaned over the mattress. “You’re going to recover. It’ll take a while, but all of us will be here to help.” She reached into her memories for the things her mother used to say. “Until Prudence did this to you everything was going fine, so… if you heal well, there should be no reason you can’t try again.”

Portia didn’t respond.

“I don’t know… where your life will take you.” Joanna stroked the top of Portia’s hair. “Maybe you’ll inherit this place. Maybe you’ll leave and be Daniel’s wife. Maybe you’ll leave the whole city behind and… travel on a whaling ship, and maybe you’ll go raise sheep in Morley, or study art in Tyvia.” She laughed a little at how far-fetched it sounded. “Well, maybe not the sheep. I don’t know.”

Portia listened…

“But… even though you find yourself here…” Joanna’s smile faded away - “time will keep going. And you will, too. You’re just going to take it as it comes. Soon one day will become another, and then it’ll be three, and four - and a week, and then two weeks, and then a month, and then a year.” She paused. “And you’re never going to forget this. But somehow, you will live.”

Portia still said nothing.

“No matter how…” Joanna stopped stroking - “dark and bitter everything must seem right now.”

A silent moment passed between them, and Joanna noticed the Overseer had stopped outside. She fished for Portia’s fingers and bent them over her own, and leaned down and pecked her pale knuckles as a silent apology.

“Prudence…”

“I’ll take care of Prudence.” Joanna stood up. “You just try to get some sleep.”

But as she moved away from the bed she heard Betty’s voice outside.

_“What are you doing? Go back downstairs!”_

Joanna heard… a young man? _“No!”_

_“You’re not supposed to be back here…”_

_“I’m here to see Portia!”_

_“That’s…”_

_“She didn’t show up last night, and now I hear she’s in trouble?! Let me see her!”_

Joanna’s stomach dropped. She flew across the room, past the towels and the dirty mattresses, just in time to see the blond Watch guard push Betty out of his way.

“Where is she?!”

Joanna blocked her whole body in front of the door frame. “Go. _Away.”_

“Is Portia in there? Let me _in!”_

“She just miscarried your _child.”_ Joanna gave him a stare that could curdle milk. “You might give her some space.”

Daniel’s expression went from hope to fear to dismay, and for the first time Joanna got a good look at his face. Ruddy cheeks. A faltering chin. A sometime-broken nose. He looked like every other boorish young Watch guard that came stomping through their doors - and his dull blue eyes turned beady as he grimaced down at her.

“My _child?”_

“Daniel…”

Joanna turned toward the bed when Portia spoke up…

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?” Daniel elbowed Joanna aside to get through. “When it was too late for me to get out?”

“No…”

“When I wouldn’t have no choice but to make an honest woman of you?!”

“Daniel, I swear it wasn’t like that -”

Joanna stepped between them - “Both of you, stop…”

 _“No!”_ Daniel barked. “She lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie to you…” Portia wobbled as she tried to sit up…

“Yes you did!”

“I just -”

“Don’t try to twist it -”

“I -”

“Do you know what you’ve _done?!”_

“She was four months along, you idiot!” Joanna’s temper flared. “How could you not tell?!”

“I paid you for a good time.” Daniel squared off his shoulders and glared at Portia and grit his teeth. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Joanna watched them in astounded silence, her mouth slack and her fists clenched, as Daniel glanced between them both… and took a deep, angry breath.

“You know, my friends at the Watch told me to stay away from you.” Daniel’s voice became deadly-soft as he started to back away. “‘She’s a grasping whore,’ they said. ‘She’ll trap you.’ I should’ve listened when I had the chance.”

And with a heavy creak of the floorboards he swung on his heel and stalked out.

The walls shook. The water in the basin sloshed on the desk. Joanna chased after him into the hallway as Betty reeled with surprise, and Portia screamed with all the air in her weakened lungs -

“Daniel?! _Daniel?!”_

But Joanna saw him storm past the row of drab windows and down the stairs, never looking back, his helmet dangling in his hand.

In the corner of her mind Joanna heard Portia let out a wheezing sob, and felt Betty nudge her aside and slip in and coax Portia to lie back down. A sudden pain gripped her by the ribs and roiled in her gut, and she just gazed down the empty hallway, pigeon-toed, her shoulders limp.

And she shuffled forth through the doorway like a woman possessed.

The old, rough floor stuck at her feet and her shadow followed in her wake, and she kept walking, kept walking, toward nowhere, her legs barely keeping her up. And when the hall ended and Portia’s room seemed far enough behind, she collapsed on the cold wood of the top step and burst into hot tears.

She sniffed. She gnashed at her knuckles. Her lip split. Her mascara smeared. Betty bolted after her at the sound of her first hiccup, and threw herself down on her bruised knees at Joanna’s side.

“Jo…” Betty hugged her as tight as she could - “Jo, please. It’s going to be all right. She’s alive.”

But Joanna clung weakly to Betty’s corset.

“That’s not what I’m crying about.”


	21. Chapter 20

 

 

* * *

 

_Attention Dunwall citizens - attention Dunwall citizens - Lady Emily Kaldwin has been safely recovered from Burrows Lighthouse._

In the small hours of the night the loudspeakers echoed through the empty streets, over the bare trees and the cobblestones and the watchmen yawning at their posts. A fog licked over the Cat’s domes and the dying grass in its courtyard, as the men in the lobby took their coats and filed out into the night.

_We ask that you keep the streets clear as she is escorted from Kingsparrow Island, and as preparations begin for her glorious ascension as Emily the First. Corvo Attano will be formally reinstated as Lord Protector, and his name cleared of all charges issued under Hiram Burrows._

In the Gold Room and the Ivory Room the girls stripped the beds, and in the Steam Room they folded the towels and refilled the bottles of oil and soap.

_Former Lord Regent Farley Havelock will be delivered to Coldridge Prison, where he will await judgment for the crimes of treason, conspiracy, and attempted murder. He may also be implicated in the deaths of Teague Martin and Treavor Pendleton, his co-conspirators, found poisoned in the lighthouse’s upper floors._

In the Jade Room two others lifted a sleeping noble off the floor and onto the couch, and with an awkward sympathy one straightened his cuffs and buttoned his shirt.

_May the reign of Emily Kaldwin be a golden age upon us all. This is Dunwall Tower, signing off. Thank you… and good night._

The courtesans in the hallways talked amongst each other the way they always did, between wrestles with clothes and forbidden drags on their cigarettes.

“Hey, d’you hear what happened?”

“Hear it? I was there.”

“Did you know Jo could do that?”

“No. But I’m not surprised.”

“I got nothing but respect for her, I tell you what…”

“Me too. I wish it were her running this place.”

Two of them snuck through the parlor and picked the empty glasses off the floor, dodging the few leftover noblemen snoring into their silk sleeves.

“You don’t know where Prudence is, do you?”

“No. I haven’t seen her since. Beatrice thought she was up in her room.”

“That’s not like her.”

“I know. But I’m a little afraid to go look…”

And down in the bathroom they washed the makeup off their red-rimmed eyes, and one dozed off by the warmth of the water heater with her chin on her chest.

“Poor Portia. She was really counting on that baby.”

“She’s better off. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

Betty listened to them through one tuned-in, distracted ear.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to say things like that…”

“What? It’s true…”

“Well, look. Maybe it is. But it doesn’t matter. It still hurts…”

The girls finished dressing down, and one by one they filed out, their hair loose around their shoulders and their skirts and bustles folded up. With a “hey” someone woke the sleeping girl and hoisted her out under their arm, and the stockinged footsteps faded and left Betty by herself.

 _Clank. Clank… clank… clank._ She sat with the noises of the water heater for a while, until -

“Betty?”

She jumped. Joanna hovered half-in, half-out of the bathroom doorway - all the bloodstains cleaned out of her robe, like nothing had happened the day before.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s all right.” Betty draped her washcloth over the lip of the sink. “Just trying to take the quiet where I can get it.”

“Ugh. I wish I could.”

Betty wadded up the purple skirt beside her and snuffed out the last bathroom light. “You’re not still working, are you?”

“No. I just went to check on Portia upstairs.”

“How’s she holding up?”

“Better. Sleeping a lot, still, which is… probably for the best.” Joanna ushered Betty out. “I’ve been trying to lift her spirits and I’m not sure I’m really cut out for the job, but it seems to be working. You know, in its own strange way.”

“Is it?”

“It is. Sort of.” Joanna watched Betty until she made it out of the dark. “She says if nothing else, she can just keep sleeping. That way she doesn’t have to live her life.”

Betty screwed up her face. “That doesn’t sound like it’s ‘for the best.’”

“It is for now.” Joanna reached up and re-anchored her crescent hairpin. “As much as she’s struggling with the baby, she’s taking what Daniel did worse. She says the miscarriage feels like Prudence’s fault. Daniel leaving feels like hers.”

“Her fault?!” Betty snapped. “Did she- you heard what he called her, you were _there!”_

“I know…” Joanna smoothed Betty’s feathers - “I know. She has to figure that out for herself.”

Betty tossed her skirt into the laundry trolley before they started up the stairs. They flattened themselves on the landing wall as a pair of drunk girls staggered down - and when they’d passed, Joanna squeezed Betty’s shoulders as tight as she could.

“Listen, I don’t… think I’ve told you how grateful I am.”

“For what?”

“You’re being modest about it, but you were the one who actually saved her life.”

“Come on.” Betty scratched at her neck. “None of us would’ve even known what to do.”

“I mean it.” Joanna resumed their walk. “If you hadn’t found that crystal and widow’s root, Portia would be dead. I’ll never forget that.”

“I… thanks.”

“And… I don’t think you’re right that you wouldn’t have known what to do.” Joanna dragged her palm along the banister at her side. “I mean, sure, me remembering the crystal and widow’s root was a fluke, but you’ve learned a lot these last few months. I think you’ve got a head for it.”

“Jo,” Betty pleaded, “don’t get me wrong, that’s nice of you, but you’re really taking an awful high view of my ability to learn these things.”

“Outsider’s blood. Please.” Joanna widened her eyes. “If you survived what happened to Portia, you can handle anything.”

“Really?”

“Sure. You’re kind. You’re caring. You’d listen to the girls’ needs. Most of all, you’d treat them like grown-ups who know what’s best for themselves.” Joanna scooped her robe hem from under her toes. “So starting tomorrow, I’ll send you to Griff. I’ll get you a spare key for my tools. Soon I’ll have you start doing the basic exams yourself.”

“I don’t know…”

“I do.” Joanna came to another stop in front of Prudence’s bedroom door. “I might not be here forever. I want to know they’re in good hands.”

“Jo…” Betty hushed - “I don’t want you to think that I’m not grateful, but this conversation’s making me nervous.”

“Why?”

“You’ve been waiting for _years_ to throw Prudence over and take this place for yourself, and now you ‘might not be here forever?’ After what she did? The time is now!”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Joanna stared into space. “Goodness. It seems so long ago.”

Betty furrowed her brow, and she gave Joanna a peculiar look…

“Well. I’ve still got a lot to think about.” Joanna studied the floor. “Let’s just see how things go.”

But before Betty could answer they heard a sudden noise through the wall - a soft laugh… or a cry? - from deep inside Prudence’s room.

“Hush.” Betty listened closer. “Is that…?”

Joanna listened too. “I think it is.”

The laugh-crying continued, small, distant, maybe muffled in something like cloth…

“All right. I’m going in there.” Joanna reached for the doorknob. “You stay here.” She held Betty back behind her. “And guard the door.”

 

* * *

 

So with timorous footsteps Joanna crept through the doorway, easing the door open so slowly that she made it in without a sound.

She cringed. The tobacco and rose perfume hit her like a ton of stinking bricks, and she had to stay still for a minute and let the reality of the room sink in for her. Overstuffed bedding. An overflowing ashtray. Doilies. Doilies _everywhere._ A framed sketch hung over the dresser of the young Prudence herself - her skin smooth, her hair its natural red, but the same cold look on her face.

And there sat Prudence now, by her window like a mockery of an empress, in all her jewelry and her ruffled shirt with her torn fur around her neck.

She waited for Prudence to… move, or… do _something._ She glanced at the doilies… then the fireplace…

And her heart leaped when Prudence spoke, still lost in the window.

“What do you want?”

Joanna didn’t dare say anything.

“Go away.” Prudence held herself. “I don’t want to deal with you. I’m tired. It’s been quite an ordeal, these last two days.”

A beat.

“The only reason Portia’s alive is because of wishes and sheer dumb luck.” Joanna simmered with such a quiet heat she threatened to boil over. “And you have the nerve to say that you’re the one who’s had an ordeal.”

“She was just going to _run off_ with him!” Prudence burst out. “Imagine what he could have done.”

“I don’t know,” Joanna answered. “But probably not push her down the stairs.”

Another beat passed. Longer. More uncomfortable this time.

“Now. You’re going to apologize. To me _and_ Portia. You owe her at least that much.”

Prudence twirled the loose strip of fur around her thumb. Around… and around… before she said -

“You know, I have a difficult job.”

“Don’t try to change the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject, I’m saying that you don’t _understand.”_ Prudence crossed her arms over her chest in a jingle of bracelets and rings. “I have to balance the books. The rooms have to stay clean. I have to know that the men who come here are happy with me and coming back, and that means making sure none of the girls run off, or give them lip, or get full of themselves…”

As Prudence talked Joanna’s attention roamed to the coffee table in front of her, and she spotted the spare office key and a letter opener beside the bottle of wine. Her eyes darted to Prudence at the window - then back to the opener’s long, cameo grip - and a sudden, morbid thought began to stir in her head.

“And here you are with your cooing and coddling and… sticking mirrors between their legs. You tell them they can’t _let_ men treat them like that, that they _matter…”_

“Because they _do!”_

“No they _don’t.”_

Joanna chewed her tongue.

“None of us matter. Not you, not me, not anyone in this line of work.” Prudence hunched over in her chair like a brooding crow. “The day a girl comes to it she’s stained, and she can wash all she wants, it won’t come off. Even when she’s old and ugly, or if she runs. No one forgets.”

“And you’d tell her she doesn’t deserve someone who can’t see a stain at all.”

Prudence’s whole body rolled with the force of her sigh.

“You think you and Portia are the first working girls to fall in love?”

Joanna’s stomach bottomed out as soon as she heard the word _love._

“I knew a man once. A sailor. Not a client… just a friend.” Prudence wrapped her fur closer around her shoulders to stay warm. “I didn’t have it cushy like you, you know. I had to work the streets. I saw every drunk and hoodlum that doesn’t make it through our door, but this one, he was… sweet, and charming. And I made him so happy.”

Joanna swallowed hard, and the letter opener gleamed in the corner of her eye…

“But he was always asking where I got my money, and I tried to string him along for a while. I said it was savings, or… or made excuses for him to buy me things.” Prudence seemed to shrink smaller and smaller into the towering chair. “Until one day he came at me in a jealous rage, and told me that three of his friends had seen me, on the corner of Bottle Street!” She wavered in her throat. “He said I was filth!”

“That’s not- ” Joanna cut in…

“I learned a hard lesson that day, but you know what?” Prudence grabbed white-knuckled handfuls of the trouser fabric in her lap. “I decided I was going to be such brilliant filth they’d regret they ever used the word to slander me. If they didn’t want to reach into a world of illusions and pull out something real, then I was going to give them such a good show they’d forget they’d ever _wanted_ real love.” She twisted into indignant pain, talking as much to Joanna as to herself. “No matter who I had to cheat, or step on, or kill!”

Joanna’s hand inched toward the letter opener… and she picked it up… and Prudence gazed out into the blue moonlight with an ironclad, tragic grace.

“We’re just dreams… dreams to them. But we can keep them from waking up.”

“And you think that gives you the right to hurt people.”

“Instead of what? Treat them like _you_ do?” Prudence snapped out of her reverie and scoffed. “You think I’m so cruel. You’re the one giving them false hope.”

Joanna paused. Prudence retreated into herself and became as still as the doilies and the wine - and from behind she looked almost, _almost_ like the portrait on the wall.

And one finger at a time, Joanna’s grip on the letter opener grew weak - so she set it down - and picked up the key instead - and shook her head with disgust.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

 

* * *

 

A crowd had gathered by the doorway by the time Joanna came out, hovering and talking all at once as they gave Betty the third degree.

“Is she in there?”

“What happened?”

Betty tried to shoo them away. “I don’t know…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Joanna waved for them to calm down. “She’s just not herself tonight.”

“Hey, we just heard about Lady Emily. We’re all gonna go upstairs.” Beatrice gestured to the landing above. “Genevieve’s got some Morley whiskey. We’re gonna break it out, you know. To celebrate.” She let Betty squeeze past. “You want to come?”

“No. Thank you. I…” Joanna untied and re-tied her robe - “well, maybe I’ll be up in a bit. I need some time to myself.”

“All right…”

Joanna headed down and out the service door, walking a long, slow path of memory up to the Scarlet Room. The scuffed parquet. The hideous statue. The disheveled pile of picture frames. The square of carpet on her way through the parlor one shade lighter than the rest, only visible in daylight, from the time Lord Shaw threw up. She climbed the steps to the private rooms and brushed against the itchy, fake bush - three years old now - four? - put in to hide the peeling paper on the wall.

A draft caught her at the top of the staircase, and she yanked her robe up to her throat - and shivered and rubbed her sleeves like kindling and kept going. The couch with the chunk missing from when Lord Brisby’s paramour turned him down. An end table with the chipped snifter that Bundry Rothwild threw at Betty’s head. The Gold Room where she gave her first orders. The Smoking Room where she turned away her first married man. And finally past the wilting hydrangeas she reached the old Scarlet Room doors, and unlocked and jiggled the tarnishing handles and shut herself in her room.

She propped her weight against the wooden panels as a foghorn blew over the riverbank. Twelve years of men and their boring stories and their hairy guts and cigar breath, crying safewords and buttoning trousers and slipping their money under the vase, and combing their hair and leaving before the pillows had gone cold.

Twelve long years of all that.

 _Not even a thank you,_ she thought.

But she snapped out of herself when she heard a tap on her window, and saw Daud standing on her balcony with his palms spread on the panes of the doors - and the foghorn blew deep one more time as his breath clouded the glass.

He tapped again. Once. Twice. So Joanna hurtled herself across the room, and wrenched the doors open and snatched him into her arms.

“Daud!” She dragged him inside and clapped at his cold cheeks. “It’s you! Come on, come inside, it’s freezing…”

With an awkward stretch Daud eased the doors half-closed behind himself.

“Outsider’s eyes, it was chaos while you were gone. I’ve been so overwhelmed.” Joanna rambled through her nerves. “Prudence got into a fight with Portia and pushed her down the stairs, and she… lost the baby, it was a nightmare, I had to operate.” She stopped to catch up to herself, then - “she would’ve bled to death, but I remembered your powdered crystal and widow’s root, I… I don’t even know why, it just came to me at the last minute - and it _worked._ She’s _alive.”_ She shook his coat lapels. “You saved her _life,_ you understand?”

Daud didn’t react.

“I’m sorry. I’m not even letting you get a word in edgewise.” Joanna smoothed his lapels back down. “Tell me what happened at Brigmore Manor.”

“It’s not important.”

“Yes it is. Who was Delilah? What happened?”

“You were right about her, is what. She was a painter. And a witch.” Daud answered in an odd, impassive voice. “She painted her victims and… cursed the portraits, and used them to possess their minds. She was going to try it with Emily. Rule as empress. No one would ever know.”

“And you didn’t kill her, did you?”

Daud hesitated, then…

“No.”

Joanna let the air out of her lungs. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

“In a few hundred years, she’ll wish I had…”

“It doesn’t matter. You didn’t kill.” Joanna squished her cheek into the belt pouches on Daud’s chest. “You made a promise, and you kept it. That’s more than you can say for half of Dunwall.”

Again, no answer - and his silence began to feel tense and stale.

“Daud?” Joanna let go of him. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“I came to say goodbye.”

Joanna’s face fell.

“What?”

“I’m leaving this city. And the rock it’s built on, and the rats, and all the people in it.”

“People like me.”

Daud said nothing.

“Well?” Joanna hardened. “Are you even going to tell me why?”

“I met him, Jo. The Lord Protector. The day I got back from Brigmore.” Daud tucked Joanna’s falling robe back up onto her shoulder. “Campbell. The Pendletons. Burrows. It was all leading back to me. For… what? Justice for the empress? Or just revenge? I don’t know.” He seemed troubled at whatever remembering it dredged up. “I tried to give him a fair fight, but he wore me down. Made me beg for my life. And he looked at me with these strange, dead eyes… and he let me go.”

Joanna had to remind herself to breathe.

“I don’t know if there’s a wind that blows on the choices we make, or if the Outsider just… watches… and laughs, like he says he does.” Daud fondled the satin trim on her neckline, then all of a sudden pulled away. “But I know a chance when I see one. If I don’t leave now, I never will.”

Joanna’s expression melted from hurt to bitter to brutally unsurprised.

“Of course.”

The window panes rattled.

“Of course it would be something like that.” She nodded to herself. “And all this time I’d been wondering if you were different.”

Daud frowned down at her.

“That was my mistake, wasn’t it?” Joanna stewed with contained rage. “You treat me like a human being and show a little contrition for what you’ve done, and I think to myself, ‘Jo, you’ve found him. The last decent man in Dunwall.’” She backed away from him, her nose searing and her blood beating in her ears. “‘He’s a little rough around the edges and, you know, he _killed the empress,_ but he’s _sorry._ He’s _so sorry._ Isn’t he? Aren’t you?” She squeezed her fists so hard that the tendons rose out of her wrists. “Do you know how low that bar is? Do you know how that _debases_ me?”

Daud stayed silent again.

“And now you come to me with this childishness about…”

“It’s not…”

“No, it is! It’s childishness - about how you need to throw everything over and go _find_ yourself. You found yourself! You just don’t like the responsibility that being good demands of you!” Joanna got louder and louder with each inch she drew further away. “Well, I’ve spent twelve years watching men walk out on women when they weren’t convenient anymore, and at least the last time I could tell myself, maybe - Daud’s - _different!”_

Daud closed the space between them. “Our deal _was_ different.”

“Then prove it!”

“What?”

“I said _prove_ it!”

“How?!”

And in one swift stroke Joanna yanked him down into a kiss.

Daud gasped through his nose. Joanna cradled his cheekbones and pressed so hard that she felt the weight of his teeth. Daud blinked again and again until his cheek dimpled and his heavy eyelids closed, and he pulled her aching-tight to his chest by the waist with both of his arms.

Joanna hung her elbows over his shoulders before she finally let it dissolve. Time seemed to slow around them, and they breathed each other’s air - until she hid her face in his clean cotton collar.

“You respected me.”

“And you washed my hands when Dunwall was drowning in the blood I’d spilled.” Daud nestled himself in the side of her hair and inhaled her perfume. “There’s nothing I could do to repay that.”

“I guess the deal’s off, then.”

“I guess so.”

Joanna choked down the growing quaver in her voice.

“Well, Daud. I’m going to miss you.” She sounded almost like her old self as she stroked the prickly stubble at the nape of his neck. “You were the fairest business I ever had.”

Daud managed a laugh. “Don’t kid yourself. My hand was forfeit all along.”

He squeezed her ribs. Joanna clutched his back and screwed her eyelids shut. Daud’s warm, rough skin tickled her face, and his eyebrows bowed up in sudden doubt - and he fell into a deep, fraught silence and drew his lip into his mouth.

“Listen.” He murmured in Joanna’s ear. “If you ever get tired of this place… meet me in the south of Serkonos with a flower in your hair.”

They lingered. And lingered. A late-going whaling ship passed and clanged its bell into the night, and Joanna heard a shuffle of glove leather and felt him loosen his grip on her waist.

And with an unearthly wind, he vanished - and left nothing in the space between her arms.

Joanna held them as long as she could in the empty air before they fell limp at her sides. The cold seeped into her bare skin and tingled up her back, and her eyes glazed over and her ears rang with white noise - nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to touch, nothing.

Until she heard a timid knock, and the main door inched open.

“Jo?”

Joanna answered without looking. Or moving.

“Yes?”

“You still coming up?”

Joanna swallowed the emotion coming up in her throat.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.”

A strange pause.

“Uh… is everything all right in there? Sounds like you were yelling at something.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Well… if you say so.” The door creaked. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

The latch clicked shut. Joanna sank onto the edge of the empty bed in the too-full room, her posture small and still somehow straight and her hands boneless in her lap.

The ship bell kept clanging into the distance. The wind rustled the balcony doors. The empress returned safe and sound to her tower and the river caressed the docks and the last bloody flush of the plague churned in the Dunwall sewers and deserted streets, and in the splendor of the garden of earthly delights Joanna had never felt more alone.


	22. Epilogue

** THREE MONTHS LATER **

 

“Loulia! Go down to the Steam Room! Make sure we have enough towels and soap.”

Prudence flew up the Cat’s main staircase in a tornado of fresh perfume, her makeup extra-powder-white and her heels kicking up static as she went.

“Violetta? What are you doing over there? Someone! All of you! Get up!”

The girls scrambled to put their shoes on and wiggled up their garters and camisoles, and they mumbled to their clients, _sorry, sorry, I’ll be right back._

“The Duke of Serkonos himself is coming for a royal visit!” Prudence straightened the bottles and trays of fruit on her way through the parlor. “That means attachés and attendants, and I want everything to be _perfect!”_ She stomped through the service doorway and down the creaking service stairs, three nails coming loose now and a fresh split in the banister. “One of you, clear out the fishpond. Someone restock the Smoking Room! The Cullero cigar order came in, it’s by the VIP door.” She cringed. “The rest of you, look _alive,_ or something. What’s wrong with you today…”

“Hey, did you get a letter in your locker?” Genevieve asked one of the new girls in the stairwell.

“Did you?”

“Yeah. So did Beatrice. I think everybody did…”

Prudence ground to a halt in front of them. “What is this?”

“I- oh, uh, Prudence, um…”

“Rehearsing for Lord Brixton’s girl-on-girl act?”

“N-no,” Genevieve stammered, “sorry…”

“You’re damn right you’re sorry. Now both of you, get back to work!”

“Madame Prudence?” Violetta called after her. “Some guests just came in downstairs…”

Prudence jumped. “Is it him?!”

“I don’t think so. They look like military men…”

Prudence fluffed her fur and tucked its foot over to hide the mending stitches on the front. She wiggled her shoulders and strode back out, down the gallery of courtesans past - and saw a gray, square-shouldered officer in a smart red uniform, and two soldier escorts drawing boot circles on the lobby rug.

“General Turnbull!” Prudence clapped her rings together with delight. “You’re not who I was expecting, but goodness, you’ll do. Come in!” She ushered him deeper into the lobby and shot him a prurient smirk. “You’re not still married, are you?”

“I’m sure you’d like to know, but we can dispense with the pleasantries.” Turnbull stuck his thumbs in his belt. “I’m not usually called on Watch business, but this comes from Dunwall Tower itself. National security. You understand.”

Prudence’s smile faded.

“General?”

The man on the right passed Turnbull a notebook, and he flipped it open to a bookmarked page…

“Prudence Morton, you’re under arrest for soliciting bribes to protect enemies of the state.” Turnbull read off a sheaf of blue paper inside. “Thaddeus Campbell, Hiram Burrows, Morgan and Custis Pendleton, Treavor Pendleton, Arnold Timsh, and the assassin Daud…”

Prudence shrank back.

“As accessory to the kidnapping of Empress Emily Kaldwin…” Turnbull turned the page - “and for the attempted murder of your employee, Miss Portia Cunningham.”

Under all her powder and lipstick Prudence turned deathly white.

“Gentlemen.” She grinned through her twitching mouth. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Why don’t you come up to the desk?”

“I’m afraid not.” Turnbull motioned for his men to follow him. “One of the Dead Counters recovered Daud’s journal from the Flooded District. It corroborates the empress’ story, and most of the other names involved.”

“Well, I’m very sorry to see that someone’s on such a smear campaign, but you have to understand, in this business, it happens all the time.” Prudence led them up to the front desk and slipped around to the other side. “Professional rivalries, you know, they can get quite elaborate.” She chattered to keep her nerves at bay. “Now, if you’ll look through my guestbook, you won’t find any of those names. All kinds of others, very embarrassing, but certainly not Burrows or Daud…”

And she opened the top-right drawer and found nothing inside.

Prudence sweated. No guestbook. No bribe purse. Not even her fountain pen. Turnbull’s stare intensified and his escorts fidgeted left and right, and Prudence tried the other drawer… the top-left… nothing…

“Well. It must be upstairs.”

She rounded back out from behind the desk and stuffed her hands into her fur. One by one she scuttled up the main stairs and into the second-floor hall, where she grabbed Violetta by the ear - and winced at her yelp! - and dragged her toward the service door.

“What?!”

Prudence leaned in and hissed, “Where the _fuck_ is my guestbook?”

“I don’t know…”

“Keep walking.”

“It’s not on the front desk?”

“No.” Prudence strode through to her office and thumbed through her keyring. “Now act normal…”

Violetta stood stock-still with her hands behind her back. Turnbull and his men filed in beside her, and Prudence jammed the key in the office lock - and withdrew it and jiggled the handle, and it opened with ease.

“Why is my door unlocked…?”

Violetta bit her lip.

Turnbull rolled his neck with exasperation. “Ma’am, do you have a problem here with theft?”

“Don’t be insulting. I run a fine establishment.” Prudence made a beeline to her desk. “If it isn’t on the front desk, it’s in my office drawer, which only I can access, and…”

She slid open the wide middle drawer, and found… nothing.

Prudence’s wrists began to shake, and she searched the top of her desk. Nothing. She knelt and opened the rusty cabinet where she kept her wine and teacup. Nothing. She raked over the top of the table behind her - nothing, just banknotes and bills - and yanked her locker doors open - nothing, just her lockbox - and seized the lockbox and set it down and ripped off the open padlock, and wrenched it open. No logbook. No immunity papers. Nothing.

Loulia creaked down onto the landing and peered through the doorway. Prudence turned pink under her collar, then red, then violet-blue - and her eyes widened with madness - as she put it all together.

“That _bitch!”_

She threw herself across the office and back out through the service door.

“Wait!”

Turnbull shouted after her as Prudence fled into the parlor, tearing past the mess of yelping bodies and cushions and hookahs and tables. Drinks spilled onto the carpet. The gamblers’ playing cards hit the floor. Some of the noblemen pulled pillows over their faces and groins as Prudence passed, breathless, pricked with heat, her fur molting again - _There she is!_ the soldiers yelled, and she ducked behind the screen - before she emerged from behind the hydrangeas and barreled up to the Scarlet Room, and wound her arm up like she meant to throw a punch and banged on the door.

“Joanna?!”

The soldiers caught up to her and one brandished his sword, but Turnbull scowled at him and gestured for him to put it away.

Prudence banged harder. _“Joanna?!”_

Girls started to stream up from the floors below - first Loulia - then Beatrice…

“Joanna, you open this door _right now,_ or there will be consequences!”

Portia came up… then Genevieve…

Turnbull placed a fatherly hand on Portia’s shoulder. “Are you Portia Cunningham?”

Portia flinched. “Huh? Why?”

“You’d better stick close to us…”

Prudence fumbled in each of her pockets and rattled her keys as she yanked them out, and she shoved one in Joanna’s keyhole and flung the doors open and burst in.

“Joanna, you…”

Empty.

Prudence gasped. She saw the bed made - and the pillows laid neatly along the headboard - the vanity table cleared of perfumes and powder puffs and makeup pots, and no silk robe on the coat rack or clothes in the open trunk.

By now almost every girl in the Cat had gathered outside the door, a sea of rag-curled hair and stockings and short tulle skirts. Betty nudged her way to the front of the crowd in a swish of Joanna’s black bustle silk - and the studs on the cincher gleamed on her waist as she folded her arms over her chest.

Prudence tugged Joanna’s drawers open. Empty. The oil cabinet. Empty.

“All right.” She shut the cabinet door and began to tremble. “Where is she?”

The girls said nothing.

“She must have told one of you.” Prudence scratched at her fur in despair. “Where _is_ she?”

Betty stared Prudence in the eye - and still, she said nothing. The soldiers signaled to each other to… what? Move in? Stay still?

“Prudence,” Turnbull said, “I think you’d better come with us.”

Prudence backed away from the doorway. “No…”

“Prudence, don’t embarrass yourself,” Betty said…

 _“No!”_ Prudence drew back like a cornered rat. “I feed you - I clothe you - and this is how you thank me. Well, I’ll find her! Joanna? _Joanna?!”_

And Prudence descended into hopeless wandering, shouting her name, wringing her hands, around the bed and by the window and past the mirror by the door - where one bare stem lay by the peony vase, its blood-red flower gone.


End file.
